


Acheron

by waxpet



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Gen, imagine standard arc from yutos pov and also yuri is relevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-02 20:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8681755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxpet/pseuds/waxpet
Summary: Yuto's world flips on its axis when he meets Yuri, his devious Fusion counterpart with an unknown mission in mind, and destiny spins onwards.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is over a year old and already completed, tags are for characters that will be relevant later  
> ill be posting a chapter every aussie monday

Yugo drives off, and everything is awful.

“Ruri?” Shun asks, but he already knows the answer. Yuto shakes his head. Shun curses. Their remaining comrades shift nervously.  
There is nothing left. Heartland exists as nothing but a broken wreck, and its population has been reduced to what Yuto estimates as less than a hundred. Their resources are gone; food and water vanished to nothing but scraps. Their only shelter is the few buildings that aren’t rubble, but sleeping in those poses the risk of the building collapsing at any time. Even if Academia doesn’t catch them, the only other fate is a slow death in the ruins of a home they once held dear. They simply do not have the manpower to drive Academia out.

The appearance of Yugo makes everything worse— the Synchro dimension does not care. They have allied themselves with Academia, with Fusion, and Yuto doesn’t doubt that they’ll soon see Synchro Duellists picking through the rubble, scavenging Heartland for no reason other than that they are an easy target. It makes him _sick_.

Yuto storms off. Shun doesn’t bother chasing him, and Yuto’s not sure if he’s grateful or not. He needs to be alone with his thoughts for a while, he thinks, and Yuto doesn’t want to further burden Shun with his issues.

The areas he breezes through are dead. Some of the buildings resemble places Yuto once knew. A broken sign hangs from the fallen rafters of what had once been an ice-cream shop. It creaks warningly at him. Food stores, convenience stores, even homes are all useless when scouring for food. They’ve already been ransacked too thoroughly. Synchro and Fusion will pick them further, sucking marrow from the bones, until there is not even a skeleton world left to mourn. Yuto doesn’t know anything about Standard other than that it exists, and that it is the core dimension that the others branch from, but he suspects that Standard and its inhabitants either remain oblivious to the Xyz dimension’s plight or that they have deemed it too dangerous to even think to assist.

The outer sections of the city are in a slightly different state of mangled misery than the inner city. Without skyscrapers to come crashing down, there’s a great deal less rubble. The smell of despair that permeates the area is less of glass and metal and more of _rotting_. Rotting gardens, rotting leather, rotting furniture, and Yuto suspects a few corpses that Academia has missed.  
Silence is what makes it the worst. There is never total silence, but it comes awfully close. There is the squeak and groan of things falling apart, and the wind that comes always as eerie rather than comforting. It sings taunts and mockery in Yuto’s ears, and he fights to ignore it.

What had _happened?_ He doesn’t even remember half of his Duel with Yugo—only remembers up to when he’d summoned Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon and clashed it with Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, and the very last minute when Shun’s arrival had snapped him back to reality. The street around them had been even more destroyed than before, and Yuto knows now that he had once again fallen prey to the mysterious blackouts where _something_ wrenched the control of his body from him and left nothing but destruction in its wake.

How Yuto _hates_ those times. _“I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore!”_ he’d screamed, and Yugo had only watched him with detached boredom. The last thing Yuto needs in this apocalyptic waste once called Heartland is to be yet another source of misery for his surviving comrades.

He finds himself in an area he doesn’t recognise. Of course, nothing is recognisable now. The city changes more every day as it breaks further and further. One day, it will be nothing but levelled dust. Yuto can only hope that he doesn’t have to see his beloved home in such a state.

Because he is alone, every little sound catches his attention, every crunch of rock under his foot, and that is when Yuto hears a very strange sound. A low groaning, creaking and snapping, crushing and—

A building is falling.

Its shadow looms over him, great and imposing and inescapable. Yuto won’t be able to move in time, his legs simply aren’t fast enough to—

There’s a flash of brilliant purple light, a dragon’s roar and someone yelling underneath it, and then a body crashes into Yuto’s. They slam into the ground mere metres from where the building hits the ground with an earth-shattering crash. Yuto’s goggles and mask protect his face from the explosion of debris, and the body on top of his shields him from the rest.

Yuto’s saviour jumps off him and to their feet immediately, leaving Yuto to sit up and weakly try to catch the breath that had been forcefully pushed out of him.

This doesn’t make his senses useless. When Yuto looks up, he sees the silhouette of a great dragon dissolving back into light. There’s not enough time to really register its appearance other than _purple_ , but for some reason, the sight of it stirs unusual emotions that he’s never felt before; emotions that don’t feel like they’re coming from him. They’re savage and confrontational, which makes no sense, because this dragon and its master just saved Yuto’s life.

From the way the other person is dressed, he is male and resembles another member of the Resistance, in dark, ragged clothes, most of his body swathed in a dark cloak, and he even has dark-lensed goggles over his eyes and a red scarf pulled up over the rest of his face. His hair isn’t covered; it’s bright purple and pink, with longer locks spilling down to frame his face.  
But then Yuto sees the Duel Disk.

He stands and jumps backwards, hopefully out of range of the Disk’s extra capabilities. Yuto would recognise that build anywhere; it’s sleek and new and _Academia’s_.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Yuto stiffens. The other’s voice is slightly muffled, but there’s something distinctly _off_ about it that only adds to Yuto’s distrust. “Of course you have been,” Yuto spits, “That’s all Academia wants. To destroy innocent people’s lives. I won’t hesitate to fight you.”

“No, I mean I’ve been tracking you specifically.” What _is_ it with his voice, it’s so familiar but Yuto can’t place it—

The stranger removes his mask and goggles.

Yuto gasps a little, but immediately refines his battle stance.

That’s his face. That’s _his_ face. Every tiny detail is exactly the same; the shape of his face, his high, aristocratic cheekbones, the curve of his pink lips, the length of his dark, thick eyelashes, the shape of his eyes, everything except for his irises. Dark grey locks with bright magenta.

“Who are you?” There’s no way Yuto has a twin brother, much less one who would somehow end up with an Academia Duel Disk. They could have been separated at birth and put in different dimensions, which is an incredibly stupid concept. More likely, this is some sort of new trick Academia has come up with, although Yuto’s not sure exactly what it’s supposed to do yet.

His doppelgänger’s lips curl into a small smile. It’s not reassuring in the least. “My name is Yuri. And you’re Yuto, yes?”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“I’ve been tracking you,” Yuri repeats. 

“ _Why?_ ” An idea occurs to Yuto—does ‘Yuri’ plan to turn him into a card and take his place? Yuto’s a known and trusted member of the Resistance, and Yuri looks so much like him that nobody would question the switch. They would lead Yuri right back to their hiding places, and then he would betray them all and call Academia in.

Yuri watches Yuto with open curiosity. “Because we look the same, and I want to know why.”

“You’re from Academia, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Get lost, then.” It’s the politest thing that Yuto can say. He doesn’t want anything to do with Academia. Anything or anyone from the Fusion dimension can _leave_ , go back to where they came from, and give back everything they took. Yuto thinks of Ruri, mysteriously taken, and of Shun’s anguish upon his little sister’s disappearance.

Thinking of Shun helps Yuto to ground himself even through his confusion. What would Shun do? Shun would most likely instigate a Duel or even a physical fight. But the only thing that Yuto knows about Yuri is that they have the same face and that he’s from Academia, both of which raise alarm bells in his head. He’s obviously dangerous and getting close enough to punch him is not a good idea.

“Duel me,” he says instead. It’s what Shun and Ruri would do.

“I’m not going to try to turn you into a card,” Yuri says. He sounds amused, which is a bad sign. If he’s confident about the situation, then Yuto should be on guard. “That’s the opposite of what I want.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I have reason to believe that there’s more of us. One for each dimension. I want to find all of you.”

“Why?” That’s the most important question.

Yuri shrugs. “Because it’s a mystery, and I’m bored.”

That is not a good answer, but Yuto can tell it’s an honest one. Regardless, it also marks Yuri as most definitely absolutely untrustworthy. He’s obviously acting independently of Academia, which, if Yuto can guess anything about Academia, will not go over well.

“What happens when you stop being bored? Will you just go straight back to Academia? I’m not seeing any reasons to not just leave now.” Yuto remembers another thing. “And I don’t think Academia will just let you leave, either.”

“I can do what I want,” Yuri says.

He sounds so utterly sure of himself, so absurdly confident in this conviction, that Yuto has no choice but to believe him. The statement isn’t arrogance, not even a haughty delusion under the guise of truth, it is a _fact_.

“I have an offer for you,” Yuri continues. He rolls up one of his sleeves, revealing something strapped to his wrist underneath. It’s the strangest device that Yuto’s ever seen. It resembles a wristwatch, in the way that a tiger resembles a house cat. The screen is blank, and it’s overly large, but its sleek silver surface is almost unassuming. That makes it something to be wary of.

“This will take us to Standard. One use only. Would you be interested in coming with me, Yuto?”

Yuto would prefer not to go anywhere with Yuri. He’s not going anywhere near that device, and he’s not getting close enough for Yuri to touch him. He doesn’t doubt that Yuri’s word that he isn’t interested in turning Yuto into a card. His intentions are by far more sinister.

There’s also no guarantee that that thing will take them to Standard. Yuto voices his concerns, carefully maintaining an even tone. Even the slightest waver will be a weakness that Yuri will catch. The last thing Yuto needs here is any sort of established power imbalance.

Yuri laughs quietly. “What would it take for you to trust me?”

That question is best unanswered. “How many people does it transport?”

“This one takes three.”

“I want to talk to my friends first,” Yuto decides. His eyes narrow. “And I want you to stay here while I do it. Don’t follow me.”  
Yuri sighs melodramatically. “I won’t move from here.”

Uncertain, Yuto leaves, constantly checking over his shoulder, but Yuri keeps his word and doesn’t follow. Halfway to his destination, Yuto turns around and comes back a different route. Yuri is still there, leaning against the fallen building that had nearly been Yuto’s demise. He doesn’t notice Yuto watching him.

Yuto tiptoes away, and as soon as he’s out of earshot, he races back to the hideout. Shun is there waiting with the others. There’s obvious relief in his eyes when Yuto returns unharmed. “Yuto, where did you go?”

“A while away,” Yuto admits. “I just wanted to clear my head.”

Typical scoldings are on the tip of Shun’s tongue, but he obviously bites them back when he takes into consideration the reason Yuto had run off. Shun has seen those moments of madness before, and Yuto has confessed to him his terror and confusion and how he still can’t stand the pain and destruction that always follows. “Tell me what happened to you.”

There’s an unspoken invitation in his words, and Yuto seats himself on the floor beside Shun gratefully. Both pretend not to notice when they minutely scoot closer to each other, equally for warmth and for comfort. Heartland is only ever cold now. It could mean winter, or it could simply be an effect of the city’s breakdown.

“I went north,” Yuto murmurs. “Right to the outskirts. There’s still a lot of buildings that haven’t been toppled there.” Shun tenses. “Don’t worry, I didn’t go into any. I don’t trust their insides not to collapse, not considering the outside, and all the pipes are broken. No water there.”

As usual, the mention of pipes calls attention to the people nearest to them, but their faces fall as one when Yuto mentions the lack of running water or water at all. His stomach twists unpleasantly. The city’s main water system had been taken out in the first few months of the invasion. Academia is clever, luring out the desperate in search of resources, only to come face to face with the army of ruthless conquerors gleefully storming the city. Now all they do is play hide and seek. It is nothing more than a game. A hunting game.

Yuto lowers his voice further. He doesn’t think it would be a good idea for the others to hear just what he’s found. At best, they would ignore it, and at worst, they would seek Yuri out for themselves and accuse Yuto of becoming a turncoat. “I think we should go outside for the rest.”

Shun raises an eyebrow, but follows Yuto outside anyway. He examines their surroundings carefully, and Yuto can almost imagine Shun as a cat with his ears pricked to catch noise. Satisfied that they haven’t been followed, Shun turns to Yuto and crosses his arms. “You’ve found something important.”

“Sort of.” Yuto chews at his lower lip a little; a stupid habit that Ruri had always told him off for. “I met someone out there, on the outskirts of the city.”

He sees a thousand possibilities fly through Shun’s mind—more survivors, Fusion users, Synchro scavengers lead in by Yugo—but he cannot guess it. Shun can only guess from Yuto’s tone and insistence on secrecy that the answer will not make him happy. “Who?”

“A Fusion user,” Yuto answers. It is not a complete answer, and Shun knows it.

“What makes this bastard stand out from the rest?”

Releasing the white-knuckled grip on his cape that he hadn’t yet realised he was holding, Yuto sighs and continues. “He was dressed like one of us, and I only recognised him by his Duel Disk. A building almost fell on me, and he pushed me out of the way.”

Shun scowls. “You know as well as I do that Academia doesn’t care for carcasses. They want live people to put into cards.”

Yuto winces. It is true. “He didn’t want to turn me into a card. He…” He wishes he could stop sweating. Yuto has long become used to the constant stench, has accepted some time ago that he wouldn’t be seeing a shower for a long time and that he only has the one set of clothes, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying to add to his filthy state.

“He _what?_ ”

“He looked like me,” Yuto blurts. “Not like how you and Ruri look alike; not even like a twin. I mean he looked _exactly like me_. It was like staring in a mirror.”

Shun gives him a look that is both suspicious and skeptical. “You’re sure?”

“You could stand him beside me and not tell the difference,” Yuto snaps.

The statement causes a second of alarm to flash across Shun’s face. “A perfect double. A perfect spy. Is that how Academia’s going to infiltrate us next?”

Yuto shakes his head. “He’s a rogue. Said he was looking for me.” He continues before Shun can point out that Yuri must have been looking for Yuto to card him and take his place. “He has a device that can cross dimensions to Standard. He’s offering to take me with him.”

“He’s lying,” Shun says promptly.

“Say he’s not, and that he really is going to take us to Standard. What do we _do_ , Shun?” Logically, Yuri won’t wait forever, and he’s a free ticket to Standard. An opportunity out, an opportunity to finally do something to save Ruri and stop Academia.

“Steal the device and go,” Shun replies instantly. The stubborn cross of his arms is not unfamiliar and currently not welcome.

This plan makes the most sense, but for some reason, Yuto is unsure. “You haven’t seen him, Shun,” he insists. “He looks exactly like me. There’s something going on and he knows more about it than we do.”

“All the more reason to not get involved with him,” Shun says. This is a valid point, but still. “You can’t be seriously considering trusting him.”

“You don’t understand, Shun.”

“No, I don’t.”

“We could save Ruri. Even getting to Standard would be better than _here_.”

It’s a harsh, painful truth, but Yuto has said it anyway. He’s heard the mutters of his comrades, wishing that they lived in the Synchro dimension or the Standard dimension, untouched by Academia’s merciless ravaging, and even some, deep in the night, had confessed that they wished they had been born in the Fusion dimension instead. To be hunters rather than the hunted.

“Don’t you see, Shun?” Yuto asks. “This is—this is an opportunity that we’re not going to get again. If we can pull this off, we could rescue Ruri. We could drive out Academia. We could _end_ the _suffering_ , Shun!”

Shun’s scowl momentarily intensifies, but it breaks down. Mentioning Ruri was the right thing to do—she’s what Shun fights for, and even the tiniest chance at saving her from Academia’s clutches is a chance that Shun will seize with both hands.

“I want to see him myself,” Shun mutters. Yuto represses his smile. “You’re too trusting; this could all be nonsense.”

But they both know it’s not.

Yuto decides that Yuri and Shun meeting is probably inevitable anyway, so Yuto takes him back to where Yuri was before. Yuri is still there, drawing in the dirt with a broken bit of wire. It looks like a dragon, but Yuto glares at him until Yuri rolls his eyes and smooths it over with the flat of his heel. For all Yuto knows, it could have been a signal, a signpost, something that Academia could use to trace them.

Shun’s eyes land on Yuri’s torn clothes, on his Duel Disk, and then on his face.

Outwardly, Shun is less shocked about the face thing than Yuto was, but Yuto knows his friend well enough to know his hidden confusion and turmoil. He knows how impossible it is. _Dimensional counterparts_. It’s a sign of something larger at work, a bad omen in an already horrible time.

Shun interrogates Yuri, asking all the same questions that Yuto had. Yuto stands there and carefully listens to Yuri’s answers anyway, just in case he answers any differently, if he gives the same information, if he says more or says less.  
“I want to go through your deck,” Shun says suspiciously.

Yuto doesn’t really think there’s a need for that. But Yuri hands over his deck graciously, and his extra deck too, and then Yuto realises what Shun’s after. It’s more of a trust thing than anything else. If Yuri had refused, then he’d have something to hide, and Shun would’ve attacked him.

Shun curls his lip upon finding _Polymerization_ , and he only touches the Fusion monsters with his bare fingertips, but he says nothing and hands the lot back. “What do you gain from taking us to Standard?” he asks Yuri.

“I want to bring all versions of myself together,” Yuri answers. If the use of ‘myself’ makes Yuto vaguely uncomfortable, he ignores it. Technically, it’s true.

 _But Yuri’s not the original,_ he thinks to himself. Maybe there’s no original, but that seems wrong too. 

“If bringing you along makes Yuto more willing, then I’ll do it,” Yuri finishes to Shun airily.

“If you even think about double-crossing us, I’ll snap your neck,” Shun says.

Yuto doesn’t react externally, but he raises an eyebrow in his mind. For all its ferociousness, the threat is an empty one. Shun would be able to get his hands around Yuri’s neck, but the second he pressed down and squeezed, seeing Yuto’s face in serious pain at his own hand would make him immediately retreat.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Yuto says. Right now he’s exhausted, and hardly ready to cross dimensions or whatever is going to happen. Right now, he needs sleep. Of course, they’re not going to take Yuri back to where their comrades are hiding, that’d be idiotic. Instead, they set up camp in a nearby building for the night.

It’s cold and the floor is hard and gritty, but Yuto’s used to it by now. He’s slept on worse. Surprisingly, Yuri doesn’t seem to have a problem. He’s wrapped himself in his dark cloak, resting his head on his arms, just watching Yuto with his unnerving fuchsia eyes. Occasionally, his gaze will flicker over to Shun, but he’s primarily interested in Yuto.

Yuto can feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up when he has his back turned. He won’t sleep until Yuri does. He can’t sleep until Yuri does.

His mind races, preoccupied with both the current situation and his own speculation. Yuto can’t stop thinking about Yugo. Is it really right to take some of the Resistance’s best and hop off to another dimension under the potential threat of second dimension invading? Is anything he is doing _right?_ Is he right to trust Yuri, or will he only bring doom to himself and Shun?

Yuri has finally closed his eyes, but Yuto’s not stupid enough to believe that he’s asleep yet. He looks at Shun, who is also feigning sleep. It might’ve fooled him if he hadn’t known Shun for years.

The air is tense. Too tense. Nobody is going to sleep, even if they want to. Yuto might’ve advocated staying up to watch Yuri if it wouldn’t have meant that he’d be miserable and exhausted when he arrives in Standard. Or wherever that device will take them. Maybe Yuri is anticipating that Shun and Yuto will ambush him in the night and take the device, which will dump them neatly in a cell in Academia’s base.

Pointless speculation and worrying is not helping. Constant tension and distrust is not helping.

“This is stupid,” Yuto announces aloud. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we keep doing this.”

Shun gives him an exasperated look, while Yuri continues to be ‘asleep.’ “Stop faking sleep,” Yuto says.

Yuri cracks one eye open and gives him a lazy smirk. “I’m not as good of an actor as I’d thought, then.”

In all honesty, the only thing that had given him away was Yuto’s knowledge of that fact that when Yuto slept, he couldn’t stand to be on his right side, and because Shun had said that when Yuto slept, his lips were always slightly parted. For some reason, he’d just assumed that these things applied to Yuri too.

“This is _stupid_ ,” Yuto repeats. “We’re going to go to sleep, and none of us are going to run off or hurt each other in the middle of the night. If we can’t even do that, then this whole thing will fail.”

“What do you suggest we do, then?” Yuri drawls. As soon as he speaks, Yuto knows that the question is a test— if he can’t answer sufficiently, then Yuri’s going to take him as an idiot, and then he’ll start doing whatever he wants. Yuto needs Yuri on a metaphorical leash. And a short one, at that.

“We’re going to swap decks,” Yuto says as soon as he thinks it. “You and me.”

Yuri raises an eyebrow at him, but Yuto can tell he’s impressed. “Clever.”

Yuto is reluctant to part with his deck, but if the guesses he’s made regarding Yuri’s personality (based on the behaviour he’s seen and, by intuition, Yuto’s own personality) are correct, then Yuri’s just as reluctant as he is. They swap decks and extra decks. Yuto is even more stingy about giving up Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon – parting with it feels wrong – but once again, he doesn’t think that Yuri will take off without his own dragon; the one with the purple silhouette. They’ve essentially chained each other down.

Yuto doesn’t _like_ holding onto Yuri’s deck. He can almost sense the presence of the dragon within; it does not like being apart from its true master, and it does not like _him_. It’s a silly thought. The vague agitation on Yuri’s face only fuels it. _Good_ , Yuto thinks pettily. He hopes Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon causes Yuri the same discomfort.

He shoves the thoughts down and away. It’s a mysterious topic, one connected with whatever Yuri’s after, and if Yuto lets himself dwell on it now, he’ll never get to sleep. Instead, he pulls his ragged cape closer around himself and lets his breathing even out until his wandering thoughts slow down and fall away.  
 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i forgot

In the morning, they’re all still there, nobody is dead, the device is still there, and everything is fine.

Yuto breathes a sigh of relief.

He swaps decks back with Yuri with a touch of uncharacteristic eagerness. Yuto would berate himself for showing that kind of weakness to Yuri, but it’s matched by the way that Yuri’s nails scratch Yuto’s palm when he snatches his own deck back.

It’s time to go.

For a moment, Yuto glances up at the clouded grey sky, remembering when he’d wake up and immediately come downstairs to eat warm breakfast. He doesn’t have regular meals anymore, and he’s learned not to let the occasional pang in his stomach to bother him, but he’ll never deny that he dearly misses the times before Academia invaded.

Yuri holds out the device. He’s taken it off of his wrist, which Yuto is grateful for. “We’ll all have to be touching for it to take all of us,” he says.

Yuto finds himself standing between Shun and Yuri without even thinking about it. He doesn’t really think it’d be a good idea to force them to interact more than necessary.

Shun has longer fingers than Yuto, and it’s reassuring to be able to squeeze his hand before the device activates. Yuri’s fingers are cold but his grip is steady, and the way their palms match and how their fingertips rest against each other like mirror images makes Yuto uneasy.

Yuri murmurs something or other, and the device lights up, and they’re off.

It’s the strangest sensation, being transported across dimensions. It only takes what seems to be a few seconds, dragged out into hours condensed into seconds dragged out into hours—indescribable, both hot and cold and floating and sinking; the only thing Yuto’s really sure of is that he doesn’t particularly enjoy it.

Yuto’s not sure what he’d expected Standard to be like.

Upon arrival, they find themselves standing in an empty, rather dirty alleyway, which they all rush out of as soon as possible. Yuto’s glad that they arrived there, if only so that nobody would see their arrival and become suspicious.

As soon as he takes his first step onto the grass, Yuto stops like time has frozen.

The sky is blue. Blue, with scattered white clouds, and the grass under his feet is green and healthy.

The roads are pitch black and beautifully maintained, and there are small weeds creeping over onto the sidewalks, and all the lamp posts are standing in neat rows. One is on, even though it must have been dawn for a few hours now. The air smells crisp and fresh, with the lingering hint of morning dew. There’s the constant hum and _vroom_ of cars speeding past, and Yuto can hear birds twittering in the trees not too far away.

More city stretches on for miles in every direction, branching into markets and businesses and suburbia, all making noise as the people that make the city bustle about their day. The artificial city lights, signs and attractions, all glow in many colours, but they are nothing compared to the blazing sun, which sits lazily just above the horizon. It beams out over the world below, and warm rays caress Yuto’s cheek.

He sort of wants to cry.

Standard is alive, and it is beautiful.

Yuto glances at Shun, who looks as enraptured as he does. Shun seems to be searching the skyline, skimming over the countless skyscrapers, and Yuto knows what he’s looking for.

There’s only one main tower, tall and looming with a silver ‘LDS’ emblazoned on it. There’s no sign of the tower that Shun’s looking for, the one with artistic gold spires, crowned with a large red heart.

Yuto risks a glance at Yuri. He looks almost bored. The Fusion dimension must still remain as an untouched paradise, even while its inhabitants cross over and destroy things that they have no right to destroy and take lives that aren’t theirs to take.

Yuto smothers the seething rage and jealousy that threatens to rise in his stomach. He’s here, he’s in Standard, and now he can finally do something to help his home.  
He and Shun will save Ruri, he’s sure of it.

Yuto hasn’t mentioned Ruri to Yuri. He’s thought about it, but a niggling voice in the back of his mind has repeatedly told him not to. If Yuri is going to be vague about his goals, then it is best for Shun and Yuto to do the same. At a later date, when Yuto knows Yuri better, perhaps he’d be able to manipulate information about Academia out of him.

“We’ll go our separate ways for now,” Yuri murmurs. “I understand that there’s something important that you’re after, and I don’t care enough to get involved. If I need you, I’ll seek you out.”

Well, that’s... blunt.

He’s already walking off, and following him will only be trouble. As much as Yuto would like to keep an eye on Yuri and what he’s doing, he and Shun will have an easier time without the constant presence of some who, having seemingly gone renegade, is still from Academia. Yuto sighs and looks at Shun. “Where should we start?”

Shun’s still watching the LDS tower. “We should focus on finding a place to stay, and making sure we know our surroundings.” It’s a practical decision; they’d always known where they were going in Heartland, and most of the threats they’d faced were of the expected. Standard is something unfamiliar, and if they wish to manoeuvre effectively in it, they need to know what they’re doing.

They venture forwards into the heart of the city. The city they’re in turns out to be called Miami; proclaimed as such by the large signs announcing that they’ve just entered it. It’s not outwardly as advanced as Heartland, but the sight of it is painfully nostalgic anyway. What hurts the most is the bustling city life— happy people, ordinary people. Shun and Yuto had been like them once, but not anymore. Never again.

Shun reminds Yuto to stay out of sight. Being covered nearly head-to-toe in dark, ragged clothing will attract attention, as will their goggles and cloth masks. But Shun and Yuto both agree that it’s better to remain unidentifiable.

Yuto thinks of his counterpart in this dimension. There must be one; four for four dimensions. It would make no sense for only Fusion and Xyz to have them, in spite of the history between the two dimensions. He would like it if his counterpart remained firmly separate from anything Yuto does. He and Shun will inevitably end up doing something unsavoury, and as they have no records, it would be too easy to identify Yuto as his counterpart. Standard is innocent. Standard’s Yuto (Standard’s Yuri) is not a player in this game, and Yuto will not see him punished for actions not his own.

They spend an awful lot of time standing around in alleys, watching the active streets stretching ahead. There is no talking in these moments. Yuto knows that Shun does it for the same reasons he does. A sense of normality, a taste of the sweet, innocent lives they’d lead before three years ago; Yuto is more than content to simply watch the day go by.

Their first problems are food, water, and shelter. Shun and Yuto have no money. All their money had been useless and quickly abandoned in Heartland, and Yuto’s not sure if cross-dimensional currency counts as counterfeit or not. At least even the worst of Miami’s streets would be more comfortable to lie in than Heartland’s least destroyed sections.

The city must be taunting him, Yuto decides, or he has some extraordinarily bad luck. They pass yet another convenience store, which has an ice cream shop beside it, and _that_ has a bakery beside it.

Shun’s pace suddenly slows; minutely, but enough for Yuto to glance up at his friend curiously. His gaze follows Shun’s to the bakery, and turning his head in that direction gives him a strong whiff of the delicious smell emanating from it.

Yuto’s stomach growls. The row of absolutely perfect looking croissants in the window is taunting him. So is the pile of freshly baked bread. And the _pastries_. The pastries are evil, and Yuto shan’t look at them any longer.

He keeps looking at the pastries.

Yuto is startled out of his pastry-induced trance by a tap on his shoulder. He spins around and takes a step back just in case; a move born of learnt instincts that he’d prefer to keep intact for now. Better to have the skill and have it cause him some awkwardness rather than not have it and lose his life.

Beside him is a young woman, probably about twenty-five years old and dressed semi-formally (most likely a secretary or something like that), looking at him with concern. Her gaze sweeps up and down him, and Yuto fights the urge to scuff his shoes against the ground when her eyes fill with pity at the sight of his torn clothing and unhealthily thin frame.

She’s holding a sandwich. Yuto does his best not to look completely pathetic when he sees fresh vegetables peeking out from between bread slices.

“Do you want this?” she asks uncertainly, and holds out the sandwich. “You can share it with your friend.”

Yuto stares at her.

“Are you sure?” he asks back. Shamefully, his eyes sting a little. This is a complete stranger, with no obligation or real reason to help them, and yet here she is anyway, offering her lunch with no expectation of reciprocation.

Acts of kindness like this had become scarce in Heartland; every man for himself. There was a general consensus that if someone was lucky enough to find some sort of scrap, then that person was entitled to do what they wished with it with no interference from the others. Sometimes that person would share, but more often than not, what they’d found was meagre and they wouldn’t share.

Early on, Shun had insisted that Yuto and Ruri take his rations until he started suffering constant dizzy spells from the lack of food. Ruri had then – in hysterical tears – snapped that enough was enough and that she refused to lose her older brother to his own self-sacrificing.

Just like their parents, who had stayed and fought the invaders to give their children enough time to run. They’d never been seen again.

The woman is still looking at him unsurely. The sandwich rests in her outstretched hand, and Yuto swallows heavily as he takes it from her. “ _Thank you._ ”

She smiles at him, the skin at the corners of her eyes crinkling a little, and then begins to walk away. She checks over her shoulder at them repeatedly, and she is most definitely walking slower than her usual pace.

Feeling a little silly, Yuto tugs on Shun’s sleeve. Shun turns to look at him, his mouth opening to mutter a remark made scathing from his hunger, but the spite fades from his expression upon seeing the sandwich. “Where did you get that?”

Yuto deliberately flicks his gaze over to the woman’s retreating back. Even in his periphery vision, he can see that she’s checking on them still. Shun’s eyes follow his, and he makes a small noise of comprehension. “Ah.”

Promptly, his eyes narrow. “You don’t know if that’s safe to eat or not.”

“I think it is,” Yuto says carefully. “It looks like it was her lunch.”

“Appearances aren’t everything,” Shun snaps. “You really think someone would approach us so soon after our arrival with altruistic motives? We don’t know just how deeply Standard is involved with Academia.”

“Standard isn’t our enemy,” Yuto tells him firmly. “Innocent until proven guilty, Shun.” He gestures at the open street around them. “This isn’t a battlefield.”

Yuto tears the sandwich in half. Well, he tries to, anyway. It turns out a bit lopsided, and he glares down at it balefully, like the sandwich had just chosen to be that way on purpose. One half is bigger than the other; Shun hasn’t noticed yet.

Before he can, Yuto shoves the larger piece into Shun’s hands. Mentally, Yuto prepares his arguments for if Shun does notice what he’s just done – it’s perfectly logical to do this, because Shun is bigger than he is and therefore requires more nourishment for the same amount of energy. There is also the sentimental argument that Yuto cares about Shun.  
Shun looks at Yuto for a few seconds with his eyes narrowed. Yuto winces internally. Of course he noticed. But for some reason, Shun inclines his head a little without a word, and pulls down his mask to eat.

Yuto blinks.

Well, after the great big hissy fit Shun had been about to throw, that’s a surprise. Shun’s eating with slow, tiny little bites, glancing around himself with even more tension than before. Yuto removes his own mask, careful to leave his goggles in place – he’d rather not cause issues with being mistaken for his interdimensional counterparts – and takes his first bite.

It’s good.

It’s just an ordinary sandwich, nothing really special about it. Yuto can taste tomato and lettuce and some other flavours that have all blended together; if the sandwich is poisoned, it certainly doesn’t taste like it. Yuto walks as he eats and watches Shun do the same out of the corner of his eye.

There are public water taps and public bathrooms, which everyone here take for granted, but when Yuto sees them it’s like seeing a miracle. Just seeing the tap reminds him of how dry his throat is.

The tap is a little stuck, but Yuto only has to slam down the handle with a bit more force than necessary to make it work.

He goes to chug down a heap of water, but after a few seconds, he’s yanked back by Shun’s hand on his collar. Yuto glares at him, but Shun crosses his arms stubbornly and reminds Yuto of the dangers of eating or drinking too fast or too much at once. Yuto remembers when they’d found a miraculously unopened box of caramel squares, and he’d eaten three and then been sick for two days. Not because there was anything wrong with the candy, but because his starved stomach couldn’t handle the rich sweetness after two days of nothing.

They’re lucky that the sandwich they’d been given hadn’t been too nutrient-rich, just light enough not to mess with their malnourished bodies. There are bins they can rummage through for more food if they must, but Shun already has another idea.

“We’re not shoplifting,” Yuto hisses as he follows Shun into the supermarket.

“We don’t have any money and we have better options now than eating dirt and rotten filth off the streets,” Shun snaps.

“You do realise it’s going to be difficult,” Yuto points out. “We’re dressed differently enough from the majority of shoppers here that the staff will be suspicious of us, and even if I couldn’t see five security cameras right now, there’s a sign on the front door that would have told me they were there anyway.”

“Shut up,” says Shun, and then unobtrusively shoves an apple into his pocket.

Yuto sighs, angles himself so that his cape covers the movement of his arms from the camera behind him, and steals an apple too.

When he munches on it later, it’s delicious enough that he doesn’t feel guilty. Shun looks like he’s going to say ‘I told you so’. By a true act of god, he doesn’t.

*

The sun has set long ago, and the night chill bites at Yuto’s fingertips as he crosses his arms to try to conserve heat. Beside him, Shun is paler than usual, but with a tinge of red high on his cheeks.

What are they supposed to do? It’s not like they have a home to go back to. But they still haven’t found a spot anywhere that looks out of the way enough for them to sleep on. Shun is so tired that he’s not tired. This state is useful in that he can keep walking with no problems, but he also teeters and makes suggestions that they just sleep in a bush on a traffic island.

“Look, Yuto,” Shun says. “We could stop there.”

“That one has bees,” Yuto says flatly.

“You didn’t even look.”

“What if you roll onto the road in the middle of the night? Not to mention all the cars constantly driving past.”

Shun harrumphs at him in disgust, but follows Yuto down the street anyway.

A flicker of light catches Yuto’s attention. It’s a bit blurry for a few seconds due to his eyelids not wanting to stay open, but Yuto sees a small fire. He wanders over, ignoring Shun’s hissed warning behind him.

The fire is in a trash can at a playground. Four men sit in a circle around it. Judging from their physical states and the fact that they are sitting in a circle around a trash can fire, they’re probably homeless.

They all look up at Shun and Yuto.

“Hello,” Yuto says. He feels incredibly stupid.

One of the men laughs at him, but Yuto is too tired to bristle in offence. “Go home, kids.”

“We don’t–” Yuto swallows deeply. Shun’s tension behind him is almost audible. “We don’t have a home to go to.”

Another man, one wearing a thick but ratty wool scarf, snorts derisively. “How long you been out of it? Two hours? I’m sure your mommies are worried about you.”

“It’s been three years,” Shun snarls, stepping forwards and half-pushing Yuto behind him. “We’ve just hitchhiked from the next town over because we’re trying to do something _better_ , but as you can _clearly see_ , we don’t have anywhere to go. Can we sleep here tonight or _not?_ ”

“Yeesh,” says the only man with a hat. “Ain’t nobody sayin’ you can’t stay here tonight, you crazy brat. Sit down.”

“How do we know you’re not going to attack us the second we fall asleep?”

The man that had laughed before sighs. “How old are you, thirteen? We’re homeless, not lowlifes. You’re safe here tonight.”

Shun still looks disbelieving, but Yuto puts a hand on his shoulder and nods. Shun sits himself down against the brick wall of the public barbecue as angrily as possible. Yuto sits beside him and carefully removes his mask and goggles. He’d learnt long ago not to sleep with them on; Shun knows this too, and Yuto can hear him doing the same.

There is no reaction to the reveal of Shun’s face, but when Yuto puts his mask down on the ground beside himself, two of them squint at him.

“You look an awful lot like that kid,” the man with the hat mutters.

The hair on the back of Yuto’s neck rises. “What kid?”

“That kid what was on TV the other day.” The man’s eyes bore intensely into Yuto’s own. “Duelling somebody. The kid with the missing dad. You look an awful lot like him.”

“Maybe he’s a bastard brother and that’s why the daddy left,” the man with the scarf guffaws. Shun and Yuto’s mutual glares are enough to make him shut up with a huff and a roll of his eyes.

The silence permeates the air, the only noise being the rustle of the wind and the crackle of the fire. That kid. Unless Yuri has managed to do something spectacularly stupid enough to get on television, the homeless men are referencing Yuto’s Standard counterpart. For some reason, Yuto feels uneasy.

Shun shuffles a little closer to him. Yuto glances up at him, but Shun is resolutely staring up at the sky. Even at this time of night, there are still dozens of lights blinking across the city, and the main LDS building seems almost eerie in the way it towers above all.

The sky is so much clearer in Miami. Heartland’s sky had never looked like this, even in the years before the invasion. Heartland was too bright, its brilliant artificial lights dimming those of the stars. Miami hasn’t reached Heartland’s level of futuristic technology, and so their sky is less dulled. It’s something completely new, and it’s beautiful. After the invasion had begun, even the daytime sky had become obscured with smog.

Shun sighs quietly and leans his weight against the wall behind him. His left arm is pressed against Yuto’s right, and Shun’s head is at a bit of an angle so that he’s curled slightly towards Yuto. It’s a protective gesture, but it also signifies that he’s finally too tired to keep being on his guard.

Yuto hasn’t seen Yuri since the morning, which should probably alarm him, but he’s too tired to care. Yuto falls asleep watching the stars twinkle in the clear sky above him, with Shun’s warm body at his side.

*

The next morning, they wake just as the sun is rising, mostly out of habit, but also because two hobos sleeping under a playground look weird to the general public. The other homeless people that had been there the night before are long gone, and the trash can stands perfectly innocuously but for the fading burnt smell coming from its insides.

Yuto and Shun do their research by wandering around town and reading newspapers and such. The staff in newsagents give them funny looks, and Yuto reluctantly puts his goggles on top of his head. With some urging (read: elbows directly to the gut), Shun does the same.

The woman at the help desk in the library has been staring at them since their arrival. To be fair to her, Shun and Yuto strongly resemble delinquents, dressed suspiciously and acting pretty suspiciously too. Yuto’s nose has become numb to Shun’s mysterious stench of something like rotting meat, but by the berth the other library-goers give them, the inhabitants of the Standard dimension have very normal noses and do not appreciate the smell.

There must be _something_ of use in the newspapers. The ones in the library’s collection go from the previous year to fifteen years ago. Yuto finds the lack of current information a bit strange, but it’s not like they can’t go looking elsewhere. They’ve only been to five stores, not including the other three newsagents.

Shun is the one to spot it. The paper is years old and has a coffee stain on the back, but the front page is the important one.

“Reiji Akaba,” Yuto murmurs. A child champion, a master Duellist, and when they search through the papers from the last year, CEO at sixteen. 

They know that name.

Not the first name; Yuto’s never even heard about a ‘Reiji’ before, but the surname is vital to their mission. _Akaba. Leo Akaba._

Leo Akaba, the head of Academia. The leader, the one who had organised and ordered the invasion of the Xyz dimension. He is famous in Standard; founder of Leo Corporation, and Leo Corporation owns Leo Duel School (often abbreviated to LDS), which is the world’s biggest and most successful Duelling school. It has branches worldwide. Leo Corporation owns so many things, has their fingers in _everything_. An ordinary citizen wouldn’t even notice how far their reach extended, but Yuto and Shun, hardened and forced to be clever and perceptive by war, can easily see that Leo Corporation owns Miami at this point.

It must be the same Leo Akaba as the one Shun and Yuto know of, because according to the newspapers, Leo Akaba disappeared in Standard years ago.

They begin to plan.

Yuto and Shun decide to split up to cover more ground researching the nature of LDS, and if it’s really connected to Academia. A Duelling school with stations worldwide—what a perfect base to train more soldiers for Academia. LDS teaches all summoning styles, because this is _Standard_ , but even the presence of Fusion summoning in their courses is enough to suspect a connection. They may be planning to invade other dimensions once they’ve deemed the Xyz dimension to have been sucked dry. Maybe the Synchro dimension or even Standard is next. Standard, where the seeds of their own destruction are being sown as Shun and Yuto split ways on the street.

If Academia has footholds in Standard too, then things are worse than expected.

*

Yuto wanders the streets aimlessly. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he has a tendency to follow Shun around like a lost duckling. Yuto has tried time and time again to rid himself of it, because in war it was a _weakness_ , but Shun had never said anything about it. Perhaps he’d appreciated it after the loss of Ruri; Ruri had always followed Shun like a duckling since they were kids. Regardless, Yuto will stand on his own and burden Shun no longer. Shun trusts him to work on his own and do something useful – something to help Ruri – and Yuto will be damned if he lets Shun down.

There’s a group of teenage boys, probably about Yuto’s age, standing around up ahead. They’re all wearing the same jacket, white with yellow lining and red on the shoulders. It must be the junior high uniform. Some of them look quite posh, all neatly pressed button-ups and shiny watches.

As he comes closer, Yuto finds himself scowling. For all the disgusting smells he has learnt to ignore, he has never been able to stomach cigarette smoke. Every single boy up there is smoking, and the combined fumes are enough to permeate even the thick cloth over his nose and mouth.

The boys are laughing, carefree. Yuto envies them. It’s early enough in the morning that school might not yet have started; or they’re just wagging. One stubs out his cigarette on the fence beside him, and accidentally catches sight of his watch. He babbles something, looking alarmed, and they all rush off.

Yuto smiles underneath his mask. Not skipping after all, just late.

Something shiny catches his eye.

He wanders over to where the boys had been standing, and cautiously picks it up. It’s a badge, perfectly new and polished. Shaped like a wing, but the most important part is the stylised letters making up most of it.

_LDS._

Leo Duel School students. Potential Academia students. Potential Academia soldiers.

Yuto stows the badge in his pocket, and retreats back to the alleyway he’d been in before. Hopefully, nobody had thought he is suspicious or acting strangely, and he has simply gone unnoticed.

He won’t meet up with Shun again until midday. He has the means to contact Shun if necessary, but he doesn’t think that a simple badge is worth drawing Shun from whatever he’s doing. Shun doesn’t appreciate interruptions. In the meantime, Yuto gazes up at the LDS tower, tall and imposing over all, and wonders.  
 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost forgot again i spent today playing pokego and drawing horrible cabbage faces from the latest episode god bless

Miami is pretty in the day. People walk past Yuto without a second glance, not even realising that he’s watching them. He sees people enter and exit the LDS tower regularly. Some wear a certain uniform that Yuto suspects to belong to the upper ranks of their forces, if only because the majority of them are adults. Others look like businessmen or politicians. Yuto is yet to see Reiji Akaba, who must be inside there somewhere. _A child genius,_ they called him. Had he been sent to the front lines of the invasion? Did Leo Akaba plan to utilise his son’s abilities at all, or did he deliberately assign him a post in Standard where he would remain untouched by war? How strange, to think that even the monsters in Academia have families. It is easier to think of them as cruel, faceless shadows.

Academia seems to adore having child soldiers. Some that Yuto had faced in battle were younger than himself, barely twelve years old and yet all sharing the same bloodthirsty grin. Whatever method Academia uses to indoctrinate their soldiers is an effective one, he can give them that. Yuto had been hesitant to turn them into cards anyway, but practicality forced him to concede. He could not allow them to continue doing what they were doing, and the Resistance’s forces were steadily diminishing while Academia’s onslaught never ended.

The LDS badge sits in his pocket like a solid block of lead. Yuto wonders if its owner will miss it, or if it’s something easily replaced. He had abandoned anything he could call valuables long ago; everything that wasn’t a card or a person had been left behind in the wreckage of his home. Yuto hasn’t seen his house since the first week of the invasion, and he doesn’t think he wants to. It will only serve to remind him of all that he has lost.

“Yuto.”

Yuto tenses and turns around. He doesn’t dare let down his guard. “Yuri.”

Yuri is standing against the wall across from him, hands in his pockets in a false display of boredom – Yuto will watch his hands carefully, just in case Yuri is hiding something dangerous. He looks well. Despite his torn clothing, the rest of his appearance is immaculate. There’s not a trace of dirt or grime on him, and his neat hair is the opposite of Yuto’s tangled, matte mess. He also smells sort of like flowers.

“I haven’t seen you in several days,” Yuri says idly. “Are you any closer to accomplishing your goal?”

“Are _you_?” It’s a weak deflection and they both know it, but for some reason, Yuri accepts it.

The way Yuri’s eyes light up as he responds is incredibly disturbing. “I am,” he answers brightly.

Yuto’s stomach sinks. “You found him already?”

“It wasn’t hard. He’s rather high-profile right now.” All this _nonchalance_. Yuri sounds like he’s discussing the weather, or even his latest science project at school. His posture and expression aid this, but he will never be able to fully disguise the malicious gleam in his eyes.

“Is that so?”

“Yuya Sakaki, son of Yusho Sakaki, Duelled the current champion Strong Ishijima and won. It’s all over the place, I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” That is the barest bones of the story, and Yuri is definitely withholding something important. Yuto won’t press him just yet; he’d prefer to maintain some semblance of peace between them.

“Have you seen him?”

“Not in person.”

That’s slightly relieving. For one thing, it means that this poor ‘Yuya’ won’t be bothered by Yuri’s unnerving laughter and mirrored face yet. It also means that Yuri still has a goal that Yuto knows of, and therefore his actions in the near future are predictable.

Yuto would prefer to delay Yuri and Yuya’s meeting for as long as possible, if only for his own peace of mind. “What do you plan to do now?”

“Follow him around for a while,” Yuri answers, like what he’s saying isn’t completely weird or creepy or anything. “Find out where he lives, where he goes to school, who he’s friends with, what he does. I can take my time with that. You were much more difficult to find, and I didn’t have the luxury of doing my research on you beforehand.”

Yuto’s slightly relieved to know that their meeting was the first time that Yuri had seen him. There’s something distinctively unnerving about the idea of Yuri following him for days, unseen, watching and waiting and planning. Yuto had never sensed a thing (not that there was a thing to sense), and if Yuri could stalk him for _days_ unnoticed, then Yuto is not as wary nor alert as he needs to be, and Yuri is a much more dangerous predator than he’s assumed.

That concept also runs the risk that someone from Academia knows his comrades’ whereabouts, and that is _unacceptable_. Yuri may have run off on his own, but he still has Academia’s Duel Disk, and it is stupid to rule out the possibility that he isn’t still in contact with them. “How long do you think you’ll take?”

Yuri raises an eyebrow, and Yuto swears internally. He’s never been good at being subtle. Of course Yuri would see right through him. “I’ll take as long as I want.” A vague, useless answer. Perhaps Yuto deserves such for being idiotic enough to think that he could manipulate Yuri. He’s disappointed nonetheless.

There’s a long silence.

“Who is it that you’re looking for?” Yuri asks.

Yuto hesitates. There’s two answers; Ruri Kurosaki and Reiji Akaba. He’s not sure which to offer.

Luckily, Yuto seems to have taken too long to answer, so Yuri sighs and stands up properly from where he’s been leaning against the wall. “I imagine I’ll find out soon enough. Good luck, Yuto.”

And then he’s gone. The tension in the cramped street, so quiet and closed in under the looming buildings, remains as heavy as it was a minute before.

Yuto spins on his heel and exits the alleyway the way Yuri went. He’s not running, but it’s pretty damn close. He has nothing else to say to Yuri, and actually encountering him will only bring trouble, but if Yuto can find out anything about what Yuri is doing, it’ll be worth it.

There’s movement around the corner, a swish of black fabric, and Yuto heads in that direction. He chases every little sign he can, but Yuri always remains out of reach. But then there’s purple – the back of Yuri’s head, his dark cloak trailing behind him– and Yuto breaks into a run. He thinks he vaguely recognises this area, but there’s no time, he’s almost there, almost—

He’s about to round a corner, but skids to a halt.

The open street ahead seems to taunt him. There are people everywhere, and not one of them is Yuri. Yuto is right back where he started, just on the opposite side. The alley that he’d talked to Yuri in stands empty, directly across from him on the other side of the street.

He can almost hear Yuri’s mocking laughter.

Yuto sighs. This is the first time he’s seen Yuri since their arrival in Standard. He’s not sure what else he expected other than what he got. Yuri spoke a whole lot, but said nothing. He also waited until Yuto was alone to talk to him. He mustn’t like Shun, then, if only because two people are harder to play mind games with than one. Shun and Yuto are a perfect team, and if Yuri sinks his claws into one, the other will tear them out.

There is no _reason_ for anything that Yuri has done so far. No practical reasons at all; if he wishes to gain their trust so he can betray them later, he’s doing an awful job of it. He’s only enabled Academia’s downfall.

Perhaps, one day, Yuto could take Yuri down and take his place, infiltrating Academia at its heart and tearing it down from the inside. It’d be a long time until he could accomplish something like that, though. Yuto knows nothing about the inner machinations of Academia, or even how to get there.

He also does not want to Duel Yuri. Yuri and his mysterious dragon, the one that stirs the blind rage belonging to Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon. Yuri would almost certainly play on that, dragging the worst of Yuto to the surface, and then letting him come back to his senses to revel in Yuto’s misery at the destruction caused by his own hand.

He is sick and tired of hurting people. He is sick and tired of people he cares about getting hurt.

Yuto looks upwards, searching for a distraction from his melancholy. The sky is bright blue, clear of clouds, and its endless expanse is only marred by the LDS tower standing over all.

He leans back against the wall, aware of how sore his legs are from standing around doing a whole lot of nothing, and fishes the LDS badge out of his pocket. It is still polished and shiny. There’s no confirmation that the acronym on it refers to the same acronym used by Leo Corporation’s Duelling school, but the sight of it stirs something like anger in Yuto anyway. It’s not hot enough to be spite or rage; almost dull.

Yuto puts it back in his pocket and makes his way back to the playground where he and Shun had spent the previous night. There is no sign of Shun or the homeless men at all, there are only kids and their parents at the park.

He sighs deeply and turns to head back for the shopping district. Maybe if he stands around looking pathetic for long enough, someone will take pity on him and give him food. Yuto’s lived on scraps for years, he’ll do what it takes to take what he can get.  
He’s stopped by a tug at his cape. For a moment, Yuto assumes that it’s caught on a bush, since the tugging point is so low, but when he looks down, there are three children standing behind him.

They look about five or six years old, all boys. They’re obviously nervous from how much they’re fidgeting and mumbling to each other. Yuto uses his most careful, even tone when he tentatively asks “Yes?”

One kid mumbles something. Another shoves him. “You do it!” “No, you!” they hiss furiously at each other. “Nuh-uh!” “Chicken!”

“I’ll do it,” the third mumbles at them. All straighten and look up at Yuto determinedly.

Yuto hadn’t realised it, but he’d been smiling a little as he listened to the exchange. “Yes?” he repeats, much more confident in himself now.

“Are you a superhero?” the third boy blurts. The other two snicker, but they’re all even more nervous than before.

Yuto blinks.

_A superhero?_

Oh, it’s the way he’s dressed. Yes, he supposes that his long black cape and dark mask and goggles could be interpreted that way. He’s also not exactly in the best condition, but Yuto doubts that the kids have noticed that. At the age of five, boys aren’t particularly predisposed to be repulsed by things that smelled like they’d been sleeping in dumpsters for three years.

What is he supposed to day? The kids look so hopeful and excited; people never look at Yuto like that. It’s a bit embarrassing, but he’s mostly just enjoying their enjoyment. Yuto crouches down so that he’s eye-level with the third boy, watching how his eyes go absolutely humungous. “I am.”

His response elicits giggles and gasps. “I _told_ you he was a superhero,” the second boy announces triumphantly.

“Hey, Mr Superhero, how many criminals have you caught?” asks the first boy in hushed tones. The others immediately go quiet and stare at Yuto expectantly.

“More than forty,” Yuto answers in his most serious voice. It’s not even a lie – Yuto’s lost count of how many Academia soldiers he has been forced to turn into cards over the last three years, but it’s definitely more than forty. The kids don’t notice his sudden solemnness.

“How long have you been a superhero?”

“Three years.”

“That’s a long time,” the third boy says, amazed. “Three years ago, my baby brother wasn’t even _born_.” Yuto laughs quietly.

“Can you show us your face?” the first boy asks. The others look ready to begin bouncing. “Show us, show us, c’mon!”

Yuto shakes his head. “I can’t, I’ve got to protect my secret identity.”

“We won’t tell anyone!” the second boy exclaims. “C’mon, pleeeease!”

Yuto is spared from further pressuring by the arrival of a woman who must be the mother of one of the children. She stands in between Yuto and the children protectively, a sneer curling her red-painted lips. He rises to his feet, but is still shorter than she is.

She sees in Yuto what the kids do not. She recognises the tattered state of his clothing as not torn from heroic endeavours, but simply old and ruined from constant use. Yuto’s general colour palette probably isn’t helping her impression either; the kids see his dark clothing as cool, but the mother sees him as dangerous. His facial coverings make him more suspicious than mysterious.

“Come on,” the woman hisses to the children. “It’s time to go home now.”

“But _mum!_ ” the third boy whines.

“We’re talking to a _real superhero!_ ” chimes in the second boy.

“I’m sure you are, dears,” the woman mutters, her gaze sweeping over Yuto’s scuffed shoes with disgust. “We’re going.”

And with one last scornful glance, she leads them away. She throws one last look of distaste at Yuto over her shoulder.  
He is left standing alone, listening to the wind whistle through the nearby trees. Shun will most likely not be turning up here anytime soon, so Yuto turns on his heel and heads back for the centre of the city.

*

Yuto wanders through warehouses near the centre of the city; they all belong to Leo Corporation, and the warehouses seem to form something like a barrier between the LDS tower and the more ordinary parts of the city. Miami is still growing, reaching out like a sunflower towards the sky, which is nice. Heartland shrivelled up and died under Academia’s poison long ago.

He stands on top of one of the warehouses not too far from the LDS tower, watching it closely. It appears almost innocent. Yuto could believe LDS to be just another corporate power, just another Duel school, if not for its name.

Some LDS students had been hanging around earlier, but none of them had noticed Yuto. The students are simple, self-absorbed teenagers using the warehouses as clubhouses and secret hideouts. God forbid that somehow, someone from Standard recognises Yuto as _other_. Yuri’s earlier statements have shaken his confidence, even though the part disturbing Yuto is his own baseless speculation.

Perhaps Yuri is even following him now. Yuto thinks he has an excellent range of vision from his vantage point, but he is only human.

Yuto watches the LDS tower, gleaming in the setting sun.

That’s when he sees her.

For a moment, his heart stops, and hope begins to well in his chest.

_Ruri?_

She stands outside the warehouse next to him, her expression resolute and angry. “Why is she here?” Yuto murmurs to himself. He doesn’t normally talk to himself, but he’s shocked enough to do so now. How is she here? Has Ruri escaped? Had she not been turned into a card? He stands near the entrance, careful to remain out of sight, and waits.

She’s going into the warehouse. Yuto wonders if he should follow, but only a minute later, the doors slam shut behind her.  
He cannot leave Ruri alone, not after the last time.

Yuto jumps down to the ground, uncaring of his own safety. Ruri could be in danger again. That’s all that matters to his racing mind. Her safety comes first, and his questions later. The warehouse doors aren’t locked, so Yuto throws them open.

There is a boy guarding them, wearing the uniform from earlier, and a LDS badge gleams on his collar. He is in the way. _Academia is trying to take Ruri away again_. Yuto shoves him, and the boy screams like an idiot as he falls over.

The warehouse’s occupants go silent at his arrival. Yuto walks forward slowly, carefully, pulling on the domineering, intimidating aura that he’d been forced to adopt during the invasion. It works, because the LDS boys swarm together. “Who are you?” one asks.

Ruri is staring at him.

“Back down,” Yuto says to the LDS boys.

“Huh? What’s with you?” Ruri asks him, sounding confused and almost huffy.

There is clearly a leader, the one that had questioned Yuto, the one who looked the most confrontational to Ruri. The LDS badge on his collar gleams. “Showing up all of a sudden… are you trying to be some sort of knight, saving the dear princess?”

Perhaps he is. It’s a silly, childish image, but it could be true. Yuto doesn’t care how his enemies taunt him, what they call him. They cannot derail his purpose. He activates his Duel Disk and adjusts his position to be ready for a physical fight if he must. Duel Disk to Duel Disk clashes are not uncommon, but Yuto would not like one at this stage.

“That’s an odd Duel Disk you have there…” Each dimension must use different designs, then. Yuto hasn’t seen Standard’s Duel Disks yet, but he can only wonder if LDS students use Academia’s design. “So you’re not going to answer my questions, then?” No. Yuto has no obligation to these people, no obligation to anyone but his comrades.

“Hold on, what do you think you’re doing, jumping in like this? This is my Duel!” Oh, Ruri. Yuto has missed her voice, missed her face, missed _her_. Ruri had never liked being a damsel in distress and resented Shun’s attempts to baby her, even as children. She’d always become angry when Yuto would take on hordes of Fusion users and tell her to run. Ruri’s bravery had been her undoing.

She goes to activate her Duel Disk, but Yuto reaches out, not quite touching her. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” he murmurs.  
Ruri blinks and makes a sound of confusion. There is no recognition in her eyes.

Before Yuto can continue, they’re interrupted by the LDS boy. “Aren’t _you_ cool? But you should just leave it there, Knight-kun.” The moniker fails to get a visible rise from Yuto. “You’ll just end up embarrassing yourself.”

Yuto doesn’t care. He’d embarrass and humiliate himself a million times over to save Ruri’s life.

“This’ll be the perfect chance to try out my new deck,” the boy announces. “I’ll crush you!”

Whatever. Yuto decides to go first. The first strike is the best to have; best to have any advantage you can get. The other – the Duel Disk logs his name as Sawatari – is cocky and lets him.

As it turns out, his opponent is not what Yuto had expected. The same to his minions in the back. They’re children. Naive, stupid children. The shockwaves that came from their Duel are completely unfamiliar to all of them.

They’re also surprised by Yuto’s use of Xyz summoning. Not even in LDS’s higher advanced summoning courses, then. If they really are from Academia, they would’ve recognised it, recognised the real-world effects of the cards, and most certainly would not have been the way they are. Yuto had expected mocking laughter and vicious insults about himself and his summoning method and his homeland, but only receives childish taunts and jeering.

Leo Duel School is not a training ground, not like Academia, and for that, Yuto is immensely relieved. It’s simply a cram school; elite, but not militaristic.

Ruri doesn’t seem to recognise Yuto; not his hair, his clothes, the sound of his voice. He protects her from the worst of the shockwaves caused by Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, and she only watches him with suspicion and confusion.

His goggles are damaged by debris, and Yuto reluctantly removes them. He needs his vision more than he needs to protect his identity. He approaches Sawatari, who really isn’t an Academia student – he doesn’t even know how to protect himself from the blasts.

“I will only ask once,” Yuto says. “So answer me properly.” He holds out the badge that he’d retrieved earlier, plain for all to see. “Is this from LDS? What is your connection with Academia?”

“A-Academia?” Sawatari is confused, covering his nervousness with false nonchalance. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“Don’t play dumb!” Yuto snaps at him.

“I mean it!” Sawatari snaps back. “Anyone who’s enrolled in LDS has a badge like that! I don’t know anything about this Academia or whatever! I swear!”

He is honest, Yuto can tell. Sawatari and his goons in the back had not heard the name Academia until Yuto spoke it to them. There are no answers here. “Then I have no business with you.” Yuto turns to leave. He won’t waste any more of his time on useless lines of questions. He wants to be productive, and take his findings to Shun.

Sawatari sniggers behind him. “Idiot! The Duel isn’t over yet!” He activates a trap card, laughing and supremely proud of his own intelligence, and Yuto _does not care_. But he cannot lose; not if there is even the slightest possibility that _anyone_ in Standard has the capability to turn another person into a card.

Also, it would make a bad impression. Yuto still has his pride. He opens his own trap card and finishes Sawatari off, not even bothering to turn around until his last two lines. (It looks cooler. Ruri always called him a dork.)  
Yuto removes his mask as well, and breathes in air directly. It’s nice, after wearing the stuffy mask for so long. Surely it couldn’t hurt—

Everyone else in the warehouse gasps. Ruri closes the distance between herself and Yuto, and she calls him “Yuya.” Sawatari stammers “I-It was you—!” and slumps to the floor. His goons race him out of the warehouse. Yuto only has eyes for Ruri.

“Yuya! Why do you look like that?” She’s calling him by the wrong name, doesn’t recognise him at all.

Yuto is confused, but then Ruri’s bracelet shines and the world turns pink. Suddenly, he’s elsewhere. He’s alone in some alleyway, a million questions racing through his mind, and he has _no idea what’s going on_.

What had just happened in that warehouse? 

He resolves to tell Shun everything later. Of course, navigating back to a place that he knows is ridiculously time-consuming, and Yuto’s damn sure that he’s seen that stupid building at least three times now.

The sun has long since set when Yuto finally finds Shun and relays his story, and he’s so glad to be able to curl up under the plastic slide again. Shun runs his hand reassuringly through Yuto’s hair, but says nothing as Yuto talks. Yuto is most definitely half-asleep halfway through.

“I saw Ruri,” Yuto murmurs, so quietly that even he himself barely hears it. He’s not sure if Shun hears him, because Shun fails to tense up or shake Yuto to be fully awake so he can explain properly.

When Yuto finishes, there’s a short silence where they can only hear crickets and wind and the muffled yelling of drunken college kids a block over, and then Shun speaks. “I’d prefer if you didn’t have to associate with Yuri at all, but it’s for the best.”

“I didn’t tell him anything, and he didn’t tell me anything,” Yuto says. He’s half-asleep and not really thinking about what he’s saying. “He exhausts me. Do I exhaust you, Shun?”

He’s not lucid enough to hear the actual words of Shun’s reply, but can read the movements of his lips. “Never, Yuto.”  
 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yes i forgot again yes you can kill me

They have wasted enough time exploring Standard. Yuto is confident in his navigation of the city, as is Shun. “We know enough to do what we must,” Shun says, and Yuto nods wordlessly.

Planning their next course of action is not actually that difficult, but Yuto’s moral scruples make it seem like a much harder task.

“How are we going to do this?” he asks bluntly. 

Turning people into cards is not particularly heard of in Standard, and if LDS really is connected to Academia, it’ll catch their eye instantly. They go after people wearing those gleaming LDS badges. Always adults. Yuto won’t stand for hurting children, even if those children are older than he is. Academia has no problem enlisting child soldiers, and maybe Shun and Yuto could be considered child soldiers, but they will not sink to Fusion’s level. They are better than that, at least.

Over the next few days, they do more research, and attempt to learn Miami. Yuto will never know it like he does Heartland, but there are certain things he’s getting used to, and for the time being, this is where he is, so he must be able to navigate it.

Shun is the one that puts their plan into action. It’s an unspoken decision, and Yuto appreciates it greatly. He’s always hated turning people into cards, but Shun doesn’t have his compunctions.

“It’s the quickest way to lure Akaba Reiji out,” he says, and Yuto believes him wholeheartedly.

Shun has turned some people into cards. They’re adults, and possibly working with Academia, but they could be innocent nonetheless. Yuto doesn’t like it, but at least Shun doesn’t talk to him about it. He hasn’t delivered the cards to LDS in person – he’s not _stupid_ – but intentionally made sure they were placed into the hands of people who will take them straight to their CEO.

Yuto hasn’t seen the cards at all. Nevertheless, the tension lingers between them. Shun looks on the verge of grinding his teeth.

“You said you saw Ruri the other day,” he snaps.

Oh. Yuto has been hoping that Shun has just forgotten his sleepy mumble and won’t get too agitated about that. He considers denying it, saying that he must have been mistaken, but he knows he is not. He’d seen her right up close, and her face is Ruri’s, right down to the shape of her eyes and the tip of her nose and the stubborn set in her jaw when Yuto had intervened in her fight.

He crosses his arms and stays silent. “And?”

That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Yuto normally knows better than to antagonise Shun about Ruri, but he’s not in a particularly good mood. One might even say he’s spoiling for a fight, and Shun is the closest target for his anger.

Shun lifts his goggles so that Yuto can see the full force of his glare. “ _And!?_ Have you forgotten why we’re here, Yuto? If Ruri has managed to escape—” Yuto makes a noise of dissention, intending to interject. Shun’s glare only intensifies as he continues anyway. “Shut _up_ , Yuto, I—”

Yuto decides that patience is not worth it and just starts talking over Shun. “You know as well as I do that if anyone could escape from Academia’s clutches, it’d be Ruri. But I… You didn’t see her, Shun. She didn’t recognise me as _me_ —she called me Yuya.”

“Isn’t that the name of your Standard counterpart?” Shun’s anger has cooled a little, but it’s a long way off from gone. At least he has the capability of reasonable discussion instead of mad ranting.

“Yeah.” Yuto resists the urge to bite his lip, even if his mask will hide it. He wishes he still had his goggles to hide his eyes behind when he locks gazes with Shun. “It’s been three years, Shun. Even in that time frame, she wouldn’t just _forget_. If that’s really Ruri that I saw, then somebody’s done something to her.”

Instantly, Shun looks up at the LDS tower, and his expression twists with hatred. “I’ll make them pay,” he hisses. “I’ll make them pay for what they did to her, what they did to us, what they did to _everyone_.”

Before Yuto can say anything, Shun spins on his heel and storms off. Yuto watches his retreating back with a sigh. Ruri is always a sore spot for Shun. He doesn’t doubt that Shun has now gone off to turn more people into cards, to continue their mission with extra fervour.

Something important catches his eye. For a moment, Yuto is sure that he’s dreaming, because he couldn’t possibly see someone wearing an Academia uniform in Standard.

But he’s not. A boy around his age, perhaps a few years younger, with his bright blue hair pulled into a high ponytail, is licking a lollipop and looking over at the increased security around the LDS tower. Nobody on the street seems to think that his blue jacket is a big deal, but Yuto recognises it for what it is. He could never forget that design.

_I was right. I was right?_ He’s not sure if this boy is actually associated with LDS or not. Yuto curses Shun’s disappearance—he could use some help here. Although, when he considers the state Shun was in when he left, it’s probably for the best that Yuto is the one to handle this. Shun would probably try to violently strangle the Academia boy in the middle of the street.

And then he receives his second shock. Ruri – looking just as she had the other day, same outfit, same hairstyle – runs up to the boy. She starts talking to him, but Yuto is too far away to hear what she’s saying.

Her genuine smile disturbs him deeply. Ruri would never look so happy in the presence of an Academia soldier. An Academia soldier would never converse so cheerily with _‘Xyz scum.’_

Maybe he’s putting on an act, to lure her away and then hurt her. Maybe he’s been sent specifically to recapture Ruri. In any case, Yuto will guard her out of sight, and he can only hope that he does not have to intervene.

*

He follows them all the way to their destination. Yuto recognises where Ruri must be leading the Academia boy – back to the very same warehouse where Yuto had first seen her. He doesn’t fancy getting locked out or caught trailing them, so he speeds ahead and gets to the warehouse before they do.

He hides himself up above, with a vantage point where he can look down and see the entire room if he needs to. The worst case scenario if his guess is wrong is that he’ll stand around in a warehouse and be bored for a while.

Luckily for Yuto, his guess is right. 

The Academia boy wanders in, and Ruri is close behind. She firmly shuts the doors behind them with a loud _clang_ , and a sense of deep foreboding coils itself in Yuto’s stomach.

“Why’d you bring me to a place like this?”

In a gesture that very nearly makes Yuto’s heart stop, Ruri clasps her hands together and bows to the boy. “Please teach me how to use Fusion summoning!”

The world turns on its head. This… This isn’t right. This is _wrong_. Yuto can’t have heard that. Ruri can’t have said that. Ruri would rather die than use Fusion summoning, and she would never sink to begging Academia to teach it to her. 

“Huh? Here?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“I want to get stronger! I’m not enough as I am now!” Oh, Ruri. She is a fearsome fighter, and her constant drive to improve herself had kept her that way. That determination is still there, but Yuto had never expected it to manifest itself as a desire to learn Fusion summoning. He feels almost sick just hearing it.

“Uh… Are you still upset about losing to that girl?”

Ruri makes a small, pained noise, and her face falls as he thinks over a memory. Yuto wants nothing more than to jump down and comfort her. He doesn’t like seeing Ruri so defeated. It’s not who she is.

“Reiji Akaba said he gave us the win. I want to become strong enough to protect You Show too!” You Show? Yuto’s not sure what that is. It’s definitely the name of something, and the inflections in her voice don’t seem to imply that it’s a specific person. Perhaps some sort of group?

_Like the Resistance_ , his mind supplies instantly. Ruri had always been passionate about defending her comrades and her home. Fundamentally, this is the same thinking.

“I want to win against Masumi Koutsu! That’s why!” A name. The name of someone whom Ruri had lost to. The name of an _enemy_.

“You want a Fusion user like me to teach you? Is that it?”

“Yes, I’m begging you! Teach me!”

The boy makes a noise of conflicted consideration as he thinks over Ruri’s request. “What should I do…?”

“You can’t?” The fragile hope in her voice sounds ready to break at any moment.

“No, it’s not that I _can’t_ , just…” _I bet Academia won’t be happy that you’re giving their strengths to the enemy_. “Is this really okay? If I teach you, you’ll definitely get stronger…”

Ruri _giggles_ a little. “Then all the better, right? Make me stronger so that I won’t lose to anyone!”

“But I just don’t know if this is okay…” The boy grumbles. Out of sight, Yuto glares at him. He hopes that the threat of the walloping that his superiors will give him for treachery and insubordination will outweigh the power of Ruri’s pleading gaze.

Unfortunately, not even Academia soldiers are immune to Ruri’s big shiny eyes. He fishes a card from his deck and holds it out to her. “Alright, well, this is the _Polymerization_ card. This magic card allows you to fuse Fusion Materials. This is the bread and butter of Fusion summoning, got it?”

Ruri takes the card and holds it up to her face to inspect it. “Yeah, I got it.”

The boy looks off to the side, looking sulkily pensive. His loyalties must be conflicting him. After all, it must be great treason to give away Academia’s powers to another for no actual reason.

“The Fusion Materials can be on the Field or in my hand, right?”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, that’s right. What’s important is that you have all the Fusion Materials for the monster you’re summoning. Though, there are some exceptions…”

“When you activate Polymerization, the materials go to the Graveyard, and the Fusion monster is summoned from your Extra Deck.”

“That’s right.”

Yuto does not want to stand here and silently get a free crash course in Fusion summoning. However, the Academia soldier’s bright green eyes suddenly focus on him, and Yuto immediately jumps out of sight.

“Huh, what’s going on?”

Just his luck that he’s chased. The boy chases Yuto all around the warehouse; neither stopping to answer Ruri’s confused questions. Yuto can hear a Duel Disk being activated behind him, and quickly activates his own.

He uses the wall behind him to push off as he aims the sharp edge of the Duel Disk at his opponent, who immediately arms himself with his own. They clash with bright sparks of light, temporarily staying in place, but Yuto backs himself out of range.

The Academia boy stands next to Ruri. _Is that a threat?_ “And just who are you?” he asks suspiciously.

Yuto glares at him and doesn’t answer aloud. He is not interested in giving answers, only receiving them. He wants to know _why_ Academia is in Standard, and why Ruri is here.

“You’re not from _here_ , are you?” The boy has the audacity to grin smugly at him.

“Neither are _you_ ,” Yuto snarls.

“Ah–! You’re from before–!” Ruri interrupts. Her eyes are wide as she stares at Yuto. He wishes that she would stay back and let him handle this, but that has never been her nature.

“Huh? Yuzu, you know him?” _Yuzu?_

“Yeah, when I was here with Sawatari before…” Ruri, no, _Yuzu_ answers hesitantly. Her tone turns accusatory when she directs her questions at Yuto. “Are you behind the incident this time, too?”

Technically yes, technically no. Yuto is certainly involved, but he’s not the one actively attacking people. But he planned it out with Shun, and they’re comrades working towards the same goal, so in a way, he _is_ responsible.

“Incident?”

“Apparently an LDS teacher was attacked,” Yuzu answers pensively.

“LDS…? Oh, that explains why there were so many guards, then.” He points accusingly at Yuto. “So… You’re behind the attacks, then?”

Once again, Yuto opts to remain silent. Ruri narrows her eyes at him. “Just who are you?”

The question hurts him more than she could ever know. Yuto has been friends with the Kurosaki siblings since a very young age, and the two of them were – _are_ – his closest, most treasured friends. Their friendship had only increased in strength as they became comrades defending themselves in the invasion, and even when all had seemed most bleak, Yuto had forced himself to go on for Shun and Ruri.

To see Ruri’s eyes regard him with such suspicion and distrust feels very much like heartbreak.

“Was your Duel against Sawatari to save me? Or do you have a grudge against LDS!?”

_For you, Ruri. Always to protect you. I have failed you before, and I swear I never will again._ “That’s…”

The door slams open. “So you’re the culprit!”

Yuto looks up, and Yuzu and the Academia boy turn around. “Masumi Koutsu!” Yuzu exclaims.

Masumi – whom Yuzu had mentioned earlier as someone that she’d lost an important Duel to – strides forwards, her angry eyes locked on Yuto’s face. The LDS badge pinned to her shirt gleams in the sunlight streaming in behind her. “What did you do to Professor Marco!? Answer me!”

Of course there would be people hurt by the disappearances of people that Shun has turned into cards. Even agents of Academia would have loved ones, Yuto supposes. There is no point in dwelling on guilt and remorse. What’s done is done.

As revolting as it is to think, there are things more important than how upset a girl would be over the loss of her beloved teacher. Sacrifices must be made, and Yuto has chosen his path.

“What are you doing here!?” Yuzu asks Masumi. Evidently, she wasn’t expecting the interruption either.

“I thought I might find something if I went to the scene of the first incident…” Clever strategy, Yuto will give her that. He hasn’t seen anyone from LDS investigating this area. Masumi attaches her Duel Disk to her arm. “But if you were lurking here all along, you’ve saved me the trouble of searching!”

Yuzu stands as a wall between them, her arms spread out protectively as if to hide Yuto from Masumi’s view. “Wait! I’m still talking to him!”

“I’ve got things to say to him first!” Masumi snaps.

“What are you talking about!? And besides, it hasn’t been proven that he’s the culprit yet!” Yuzu retorts. Yuto feels a wave of affection for her wash over him. She really is just like how he remembers Ruri; Ruri’s always had a ridiculously strong sense of justice, and her kindness and empathy know no bounds.

“Once we see whether he uses Xyz summoning or not, we’ll know the truth!”

“Xyz…?” muses the Academia boy. He smiles, and only Yuto sees the menacing gleam in his eyes. “Oh… Is that so?”

“I’ll find out myself!” Masumi cries, and then activates her Duel Disk. “Fight me in a Duel!”

Yuto doesn’t particularly want to Duel her, or anyone at this point in time. Yuzu is his saving grace once more, and steps towards Masumi with a reproachful “Hey, cut it out! Why don’t you give it a rest already!?” 

Just as Yuto mentally thanks her, the pink jewels on Yuzu’s bracelet begin to emit brilliant pink light. For a moment the colour floods and overwhelms Yuto’s vision, and then he is warped away.

Yuto leans against the wall in the deserted alleyway that he’s been transported to and sighs. He’s been doing that a lot, lately.

That really was a stroke of bad luck; and now he’s been discovered by several people, one of which who definitely belongs to an enemy faction, and possibly another. Yuto will have to inform Shun that their plan seems to be working effectively, however.

*

A few days later, Shun has most definitely caught Akaba Reiji’s attention.

There are people looking for him everywhere, and Yuto finds himself using his old skills from Heartland to stay unnoticed. It wouldn’t do to be noticed by any more people than he already has been, especially if his suspicions are true.

Yuzu and Sawatari had called him Yuya. Yuri had said that the name of the boy he’d been stalking, the one who shared their face, is Yuya.

Yuto doesn’t want Yuya to be blamed for his actions. if Yuya lives in a peaceful dimension like Standard, one that has seemingly never heard of the other dimensions, then he retains some innocence, and Yuto hopes that innocence can last as long as possible.

It is inevitable that Yuya will be caught up in the interdimensional conflict. Yuto can only hope that it won’t be his fault.

“Yuto.”

Oh, wonderful. Yes, this is exactly what Yuto wants right now.

He’s tempted to tell Yuri to get lost, but the rational part of his mind knows it’s a bad idea. “Hello, Yuri.”

Yuri looks well, like he’s been sleeping somewhere that isn’t a public playground or the grimy space under a bridge. Yuto would ask, but Yuri would only help him for a cost that Yuto won’t want to give, so there’s no point.

“Are you any closer to your goal?” Yuri asks. His eyes are half-lidded, and there’s a smirk playing about the corners of his lips. Yuto hates that smirk. He hates Yuri’s face, which is an incredibly immature way to phrase it, but it’s true.

It’s not about appearance. It’s Yuri himself that Yuto hates. He’s like a sick parody, a clone gone wrong, an uncanny mirror image that moves on its own. Yuri deliberately pulls these expressions because he knows it bothers Yuto, and that’s what riles him. The sight of his own face with someone else living behind it, twisted and taunting him, mocking Yuto’s failures.

“I am closer,” Yuto answers carefully. Every day that passes is another day that Yuri gets closer to his own goal, and as soon as he gets what he wants, he becomes a wildcard, and even their infrequent meetings could stop. Yuto needs to know what Yuri is doing, because any trust they have between them is a feeble pretence and they both know it. He has a rather pressing question, however. “Why is Academia here?”

Yuri raises an eyebrow condescendingly. “Academia isn’t here. It’s been outright stated that Standard isn’t to be touched at least for another year. What kind of idiot would purposely instigate a war on two fronts?”

Yuto grits his teeth. “Then why are there people in Academia uniforms, Yuri?”

“How many?” Yuri demands.

“Just one.”

“They shouldn’t be here, regardless,” Yuri says. For once, he’s genuinely disturbed by something, and watching his controlled exterior crack would be satisfying under other circumstances.

“Do you have any idea _why_ they’re here?”

Yuri shakes his head. “If it’s only one, they could be scouting. I don’t know why. The Professor wouldn’t change his plans so suddenly.” The implied _‘and without telling me’_ hangs heavily in the air. Yuto doesn’t know the details of Yuri’s involvement with Academia, but if the Professor is who he thinks he is, then Yuri’s attitude makes a lot more sense.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?” Yuri asks.

“Only if you tell me what you’re doing.”

Yuri purses his lips. “A stalemate, then.” Yuto expects him to leave, but he stays put. “I’m willing to trade with you, Yuto. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure if your prices are something I’m willing to pay,” Yuto murmurs.

Yuri sighs melodramatically, shaking his head. “Really, Yuto, you’re so dramatic.” Yuto wants to snort incredulously at that. “It’s hardly like you’re entering a deal with the devil.”

Except it is exactly that. Yuto trusts Yuri to keep his word only when it suits him. He’s unreliable and is still a Fusion user, still from Academia’s elite ranks. No matter how desperate Yuto is for information, he’s not going to give anything away.

“The name of your dragon,” Yuto says suddenly. “What is it?”

Yuri blinks, but answers him anyway. “Starve Venom Fusion Dragon. Yours?”

“Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon.”

“Rebellion,” Yuri repeats, and then he laughs. Just for a few seconds, but there’s a nasty, mocking undertone that makes Yuto’s skin crawl. “It suits you.”

The heels of his shoes click loudly against the concrete as he walks away. When the sound fades away, Yuto lets out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

There’s something about the names of the dragons, he thinks suddenly. An ongoing pattern, it should apply to all of them, and why is he thinking—?

Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, Starve Venom Fusion Dragon, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon.

That’s _it!_

Yuto remembers the mysterious biker Duellist in white, the one who’d attacked him for seemingly no reason. The Synchro user, the Pawn of Fusion. _Yugo_.

The dragon he’d used followed the same pattern.

Yuto wonders just what he’d find if he removed that helmet.

Pawn of _Fusion_ , and Yuto wants to punch himself in the face. He’s had the opportunity several times to ask Yuri about that, if that was how he’d known about their shared faces and their dragons, but it simply hadn’t occurred to him.

Yuto considers kicking the wall out of frustration, but he’d only end up hurting himself, and then he’d feel worse. No point in standing around feeling sorry for himself, he decides, and then he heads out to find Shun.

*

He’s oddly gravitated to the warehouses near the LDS tower. Perhaps it’s because so much has happened there. Using that line of thought, it’s a logical idea to patrol this area in particular. After all, every time Yuto has seen Yuzu has been here.

Her connection to Ruri is still unknown. _Is_ she Ruri, or is she somebody else entirely?

Unbidden, his traitorous mind takes off down that tangent. Yuri’s face – a perfect mirror of Yuto’s own, if Yuto could ever pull an expression that antagonised himself so – flashes through his mind, and so does the image that Yuto’s subconsciously created of what Yuya looks like.

Mentally, he lines them up beside each other and thinks. _Yuto, Yuri, Yuya_. He considers Yugo as well, but Yuto hasn’t seen his face yet, only has his private speculation. Three/four boys with the exact same features, one from each dimension. There is something suspicious there, and they are pieces of a puzzle that, when solved, will inevitably reveal itself to be part of a larger _something_ than the interdimensional war.

If Yuto can have counterparts from each dimension, then it’s not improbable that there could be more than one Ruri as well. Briefly, Yuto entertains the thought of multiple Shuns, but that would be too terrifying and if more than one Shun exists, they should not be allowed to meet. Ever. They would destroy each other. Viciously.

Yuzu is so much like Ruri, and yet there’s too much evidence suggesting that they’re different people. Yuzu does things that Ruri would never.

She is doing one of those things now. Yuto can hear her voice around the corner, and the voice of that boy from Academia as well. He’s still instructing her on Fusion summoning, then.

“I activate the magic card _Polymerization_ from my hand!” Yuzu cries. “I fuse Aria the Melodious Diva and Sonata the Melodious Diva! Enchanting melodies, bloom in splendid glory and play for us a new harmony! Fusion Summon!”

There is the unmistakeable beeping noise of an error. “W-Why did the error pop up!? Why didn’t it summon my Fusion monster!? Come on!”

“Hey, did you remember to put it in your Extra Deck?” Her companion sounds both bored and disappointed.

“Huh!? E-Extra!?”

“I’ve told you a million times that Fusion monsters go in your Extra Deck, not your Deck!”

“T-That’s right…”

Ruri hadn’t made mistakes like those often. The last time she had was when they were very young. Ruri had challenged Yuto to a Duel with even more eagerness than usual, and although he was suspicious, he’d accepted. It had turned out that, because her parents wouldn’t buy Xyz monsters for her yet, she’d stolen one of Shun’s, but had forgotten to put it in the right place. Her cheeks, still round with baby fat, had burned red with embarrassment, and Yuto had done his best not to laugh.

He misses when mistakes like that were something funny instead of something that could cost their lives.

Yuzu moves just out of Yuto’s range of hearing to have a conversation with her opponent. Yuto doesn’t dare try to move somewhere where he could hear them; he’s been lucky enough as it is now, and he’d prefer not to have a repeat of the last incident. He can hear mostly mumbles now, and the occasional word.

“Why would he say that to me?”

Yuzu sounds wistful, lost and confused. Yuto can think of only one thing that he’s directly said to her that might make her feel that way. _“I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”_

Because it’s his fault.

Yuto is tired of Ruri getting hurt, and he hates that it always seems to be his fault. He will never forget the shock and fear in her eyes the first time that he’d used Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon outside of Solid Vision against her, and yet it had caused real damage anyway. Shun had been furious with Yuto for weeks, but the pain that caused was nothing compared to how it made Yuto feel when Ruri would subtly flinch away from him.

She’d forgiven him, but the memory had stayed with her for a long time. Just when things had finally seemed to be alright, something worse had revealed itself.

The blackouts. The rare times when Yuto had summoned Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, and everything afterwards for the rest of the Duel would be a blank. The first time it had happened, he’d been Duelling Ruri, and she’d recounted his glowing eyes, unstoppable rage, and merciless cruelty with more than a touch of fright.

Yuto thinks of the last time, of his Duel against Yugo, the Pawn of Fusion. He’d succumbed to the madness once more, and had only caused more destruction. Yugo had driven away, completely unharmed, leaving Yuto alone with his guilt. He’d thought he had a lead, something that could help to save Ruri, but it had been yet another mirage.

“Ruri…” Yuto murmurs, without thinking. Suddenly, his vision is nothing but pink light.

*

He’s standing in the middle of a very familiar alley. “This is…!” The LDS tower stands above him, almost mocking. “Did I get warped again?”

Being teleported is a very strange sensation, and it always seems to happen at the most inconvenient times. Yuto is kind of sick of it. It could be something useful if he knew why it happened or a way to utilise it to his advantage. As it is, it’s just a hindrance.

“Yuto.”

Yuto jumps a little and curses himself for it. Of course Yuri would be skulking in random back alleys, just waiting to ruin any unfortunate passer-by’s day.

How does he _always_ know where to find Yuto? At this point, Yuto is starting to suspect some sort of tracking device is in play. But if there was one, he’d certainly have noticed it by now. It would have to be on him; on his skin or clothes or in his hair, and even the tiniest insect in those places would have ended up irritating him, and he’d have brushed it off without even realising it.

Unbidden, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon’s face appears in his mind, and a chill runs down Yuto’s spine. _Of course_. Yugo had known exactly where Yuto was, even in the massive wreck that was Heartland. All of Fusion’s other forces had failed to find their hideouts, and yet Yugo had managed to seek out Yuto specifically.

_The dragons_. If Yugo can harness his dragon’s powers to locate his counterparts with ease, then it’s hardly unfeasible that clever, calculating Yuri is able to do so as well.

“Yuri,” Yuto greets him coldly. He removes his mask from his face, but lets it hang around his neck.

Yuri melts out of the shadows with an obviously false smile. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Could you be following me, I wonder?”

_Take the blame off yourself and place it onto me. You plan for me to waste my time trying to prove myself innocent of a crime I have not committed, and in doing so, you distract me from questioning you of the same._ ”I ended up here by chance, not choice.”

Too late, he realises the stiffness in his tone, and the lingering irritation from being interrupted from something important _again_ was still in his voice. Yuri leaps onto the perceived weakness with an innocent blink. “Oh? Were you interrupted in the middle of something?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Yuto spits. There is no point in lying; he’s already given away the answer.

Yuri considers him for a moment, and Yuto can almost hear the gears whirring behind his mask of mild curiosity. If Yuto lets him think for too long, even if ‘too long’ means ‘two seconds’, Yuri will have calculated the perfect response to enrage Yuto into slipping further and spilling more information.

_No. We’re not doing this. I’m not playing your games._ “I saw that Academia agent again.”

“You’re _sure_ he’s from Academia?” Yuri asks him, almost sweetly. “I’ve told you before, Academia has no interest in Standard whatsoever.”

“For now,” Yuto mutters bitterly.

Surprisingly, Yuri looks amused; not in the condescending or malicious way he usually does. “For now,” he parrots agreeably.

Yuto narrows his eyes at him, but Yuri only smiles. Yuri’s smiles are doubly as irritating as they should be because he wears Yuto’s face, and also because he is a jerk.

Those smiles are impossible to read through. _What is he thinking?_ There are so many lies there, so many secrets that Yuto would love to pry from Yuri’s mind.

Perhaps he can, one day. “He’s definitely from Academia. He told me so himself,” Yuto announces.

Yuri cocks his head. “But what is he _doing_ , Yuto?”

“Why should I tell you?”

There. Yuto has the upper hand in their exchange, for once. He’s not sure how long it will last.

“Because I’m curious as to why Academia is delegating forces to Standard when it’s on the bottom of our list of priorities,” Yuri answers. A small smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. “The Professor has already begun the planning stages for the invasion of the Synchro dimension. Wasting forces on Standard is ill advised.”

Yuto soaks in the information, careful not to let his incredulity or his surprise show. He’s managed to get something out of Yuri; something actually relevant.

He will be subject to Yuri’s wrath if he doesn’t reply in kind. It’s more than fine, because Yuto likes reward systems, anyway, and he definitely wants to encourage future exchanges similar to this one. “He was teaching a girl from Standard how to use Fusion summoning. In Academia’s style, and using _Polymerization_ cards directly from the Fusion dimension.”

Yuri blinks.

And again. “Just out in the open, or in some kind of facility?” he asks.

“Middle of nowhere, nothing institutional about it,” Yuto replies swiftly.

“How old is he?”

“Our age, maybe a little younger.”

Yuri blinks at him once more. His eyes are wide, like an owl’s. Almost instantly, his face splits into an unnerving grin. “Well, _well_.”

“What do you think?” Yuto asks him boldly.

He’s not sure if they’ve established a good enough dynamic to yield a useful reply, but Yuri is full of surprises today. “He’s certainly not recruiting, that’s for sure. If anything, I’d say he’s gotten a little side-tracked. _Distracted_.” Yuri sounds ridiculously smug.

Yuto leans back against the wall and offers Yuri a similarly smug look. Academia isn’t nearly as much of an infallible whole as he’s been lead to believe, then. (Yuri is an exception, of course.) “Do you think he’s even on official business?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Yuri says cheerily. “Either way, he’s most certainly in trouble.” He sighs melodramatically and lets the tips of his fingers skim along the edge of his Duel Disk. “This is too good; I have half a mind to run off and play tattletale right now.”

So he can return to or contact Academia at any time? That is _useful_ to know, and Yuri clearly hadn’t even meant to let those details slip.

As much as Yuto likes sort of getting along with Yuri, he’s not stupid enough to think it will last. He’s gotten enough out of this conversation as it is; Yuri will hardly slip again after this.

Their next meeting will be the same as the usual, Yuto suspects. This temporary camaraderie means nothing. The power plays will inevitably resume.

But this time, Yuto intends to tip the balance in his favour. “Wouldn’t that make you a hypocrite?” he asks. His voice isn’t raised in the slightest, and yet it yields the same effect as if he’d shouted at the top of his lungs.

Yuri stills. The alley becomes silent.

Yuto continues. His voice echoes softly, made louder by the heavy silence that has descended so suddenly. “You’re hardly on official business either. I’m sure the Professor would be _very_ interested in just how you obtained the information you bring to him.”

His aim is _perfect_. Just from Yuri’s reaction – rather, non-reaction – Yuto can garner that he is indeed acting out on his own. Yuri has said so before, but it’s good to confirm that he wasn’t lying.

Yuri seems to almost ice over. His posture becomes sharp and tense, and his glare could freeze stars. He’s been bested, the weaker one in their games at last. He has no control here.

And before Yuri can do anything to regain it or start delivering cutting insults, Yuto spins on his heel and walks away. An onlooker might even say he strutted, with his cape billowing dramatically behind him.

Having the last word feels _good_.

*

Yuto is not even five metres around the corner when an explosion rocks the ground beneath his feet. He stumbles a little, his ears ringing. The world seems to vibrate for a while before Yuto takes off running towards the source.

For a moment, he considers that Yuri has blown something up in a fit of rage, but that doesn’t make any sense, and the explosion came from the opposite direction that Yuto is heading from. The noise is _familiar_ , which is a stupid thought because most explosions sound pretty much the same.

But when Yuto finds the source, he understands why.

“Shun,” he breathes.

Shun stands across from him, looking as severe as ever in his dark blue coat, his red scarf pulled up to cover what of his face that his goggles don’t hide. Between them is a single man wearing the uniform of LDS’ Top Team. He glances between Shun and Yuto wildly, and Yuto can see the second that realisation dawns in his eyes.

It’s not that Shun and Yuto are lookalikes, not nearly anything like how Yuto has his doppelgängers, but their style of dress is similar enough that they present a united front.

The LDS man opens his mouth to spit something accusing at Yuto. He must be wondering if Yuto has come to ambush him after Shun has weakened and worn him down so. “Ignore him,” Shun snarls at him, and the man quickly shuts his mouth. “He has nothing to do with this.”

Yuto raises an eyebrow behind the safety of his goggles so that none can see it. He wants to smile, but the twitch of muscle would show behind the mask, so he shoves the urge down. Shun really has taken to heart what Yuto had said. He’s glad, so glad, that Shun won’t force him to be involved in the process.

There’s something almost cruel in Yuto choosing to sit back and have Shun do the dirty work. He is too _weak_ to bear the burden that it puts on his soul, and makes Shun carry it alone. Yuto wants nothing more than to help his friend, to ease his pain by shouldering it alongside him, but he knows for sure that the guilt he would heap on his mind would kill him.

So for now, Yuto nods almost imperceptibly at Shun, and turns his gaze away as Shun does what they must.  
 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i forgot to update on monday again but this time its not my fault i got pokemon moon for christmas

Later, Shun is being stupid again.

Yuto can understand the point of turning those other people into cards; he’d agreed that it was necessary to lure out Reiji Akaba, but this is going too far. Masumi Koutsu is an innocent, hurting over the seeming death of her teacher, and for Shun to fight her at this point is not fair.

“Duel me!”

“Stop it, Shun!”

Yuto jumps off the top of the building and lands beside Shun, grabbing the arm with Shun’s Duel Disk and holding it tightly by the wrist. “Stop being so reckless!”

“ _Yuto!_ ” Shun snaps at him; he’s both unpleasantly surprised and confused.

Yuto removes his mask to be able to speak clearly, and also so that Shun can see the displeasure in his expression. “I thought I told you before that this isn’t our battlefield! I told you that they aren’t our enemies!”

Shun smacks Yuto’s hand away and yanks down the red scarf over his face. “This is _my_ battlefield! In order to get Ruri back, I have to do this! If you’re going to get in my way, I’ll defeat you too!”

Behind them, Masumi suddenly speaks. “I’ve found the culprit behind the assault incidents. Send backup, Yaiba, Hokuto!”

Ah. This _was_ inevitable, and also most likely what Shun wants. The more people he takes out from LDS, the more of a threat he poses, and the better people they will send after him, until Reiji Akaba himself steps in. Yuto understands Shun’s line of thinking, but he cannot support the direction his actions are taking.

“Wait! We don’t know if he’s the culprit yet!” Yuzu interrupts. She’s a bit of an angel, really; still defending them even though they all _know_ that Shun and Yuto are the perpetrators of the incidents.

Of course, the second that she speaks, Shun gasps. “Ruri!” He turns around to stare at her, intensely, as if she will disappear the second that he tears his eyes away.

Yuzu looks slightly afraid and moves back from him.

Shun has always been stubborn and a bit reckless. Yuto has warned him several times that Yuzu looks extraordinarily like Ruri, but that there is very much the possibility that they are not the same person.

But he hasn’t taken into consideration the emotional effect that seeing Yuzu would have on Shun. Shun misses Ruri more than anyone can imagine, and seeing her safe and unharmed would be enough to throw any kind of rationality in him right out the window.

“Why is Ruri here…?” Shun removes his goggles, watching Yuzu with almost fevered gold eyes. “Did you get away!? Did you manage to escape on your own!?” With every word, he takes another step closer to her. “ _Ruri!_ ”

Yuzu is holding up her arms to shield herself; Shun has most definitely frightened her. Yuto knows Shun well enough that he will do something stupid without intervention.

So he takes the quickest and easiest method and slams his fist into Shun’s gut. Shun makes a strangled noise of pain, but manages to force out one last “Ruri,” even as the air is pushed out of his lungs.

“She isn’t Ruri,” Yuto says to him lowly, just before Shun passes out. Yuto hefts Shun’s unconscious body over his shoulder. He isn’t light by any means, but Shun has always been a skinny bastard and three years in resource-scarce Heartland make him a bit easier to lift than if he’d been properly and regularly fed good food.

“Contact LDS and send as many people as possible!” Masumi exclaims, holding her Duel Disk up to her ear. They should probably leave really soon, then.

Yuto suddenly notices the cards strewn out on the ground. There’s a Duel Disk as well, one he recognises as Yuzu’s. The cards must be hers; Shun probably knocked her Duel Disk off her arm in his hurry to fight Masumi. One lone card stands out from the rest.

It’s not like it’s actually diseased or dangerous to himself, but the sight of _Polymerization_ sparks deep revulsion in the pit of his stomach anyway.

“This card doesn’t suit you,” Yuto says to Yuzu before he can stop himself. In a way, it’s true. Ruri could never force herself to use Fusion, even if she was tortured.

He doesn’t have any right to dictate what Yuzu does. Regardless, Yuto can’t take it back now. He’ll stand by what he said. Academia has caused far too much suffering for him to overlook.

“Huh?” Yuzu looks confused. She evidently doesn’t know of the war between worlds, of what the Fusion dimension has done to the Xyz dimension, of what Fusion has done to Ruri.

“Well, isn’t that too bad,” interrupts a voice behind them. “I don’t like hearing that about presents I give to people.”

Yuto looks over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing with dislike when they fix on that familiar Academia jacket and malicious green gaze.

“I wouldn’t mind showing you just how amazing that card is, though.”

“Hey! Cut it out, Sora!” Yuzu intervenes once more. _So his name is Sora, then. I’ll remember that._ She steps between them and holds out her arms as if to defend Shun and Yuto, and then turns to glare at Yuto. “And you too!”

“Masumi!” another voice calls. There is no time to look, only time to register the shock on Yuzu’s face when the bracelet lights up once more, and Yuto and his unconscious load are gone.

 

*

Yuto lays Shun’s limp body down on the alley floor as gently as he can. Yuzu’s bracelet always seems to teleport him somewhere remote, so there’s no chance that they’ll be followed or bothered unnecessarily.

Yuto wonders what Ruri would think of what they’re doing. He misses her. She was always a calm balance between him and Shun, and her judgement was always sound. Yuto misses his comrade, but he also misses his friend, the girl who used to Duel for fun and walked with him to school every morning and would giggle while he and Shun fought.

He’ll do anything to save her. Yuto thinks of Yuzu, too. He doesn’t want her hurt. She’s an innocent in this, and deserves to be able to remain that way.

And that makes him think of Yuya, whom Yuto has never even seen face to face. Oddly enough, it’s easy to put together an image in his mind, of a boy with Yuto’s face, maybe with his hair a little less spikey, his eyes wider and brighter, with a brilliant, untroubled smile.

He’s putting that image in the Heartland school uniform before he realises it, and Yuto banishes the image of his past self from his mind. It’s too late for him, but perhaps the people of Standard can be spared from Fusion’s reign of terror.

If he and Shun can succeed in their mission, then they’ll be saving so many people.

He sits down beside his comrade and carefully brushes back a strand of teal hair that has fallen over Shun’s closed eyes.

The touch causes Shun to stir back to life. His eyelids flutter open groggily, but his eyes quickly focus on Yuto’s face. Shun forces himself to stand up, even though he’s obviously in pain, and with a hand resting gingerly where Yuto had punched him, Shun unleashes the full force of his enraged glare.

“What the _hell_ , Yuto!?”

Here we go. Shun won’t shut up about this, Yuto knows. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Perhaps they both need this reminder of what they’re fighting for so they can continue to soldier on, and perhaps they need a proper screaming match to dissolve the dissention between them.

Yuto rises to his feet, refusing to be cowed. “Shun–”

“That was Ruri!” Shun snarls at him. “She was _there_ , don’t you dare tell me that wasn’t her. I was – I was going to – And you–”

“She isn’t Ruri,” Yuto tells him firmly. “That girl learned Fusion summoning in front of my very eyes. There is no way our comrade, and your sister…” He turns around to stare up at Shun resolutely. “… Would ever learn Fusion with a smile on her face!”

Shun inhales sharply at the mention of Fusion. He hadn’t been expecting that, or that Yuto would have evidence to refute his conclusion at all. “… She really uses Fusion summoning?”

“Learnt it solely by her own will,” Yuto replies.

“Ruri would never do that.”

“Exactly. Yuzu isn’t Ruri, Shun.”

“Is that her name? Yuzu?”

Yuto nods.

“Yuzu…” Shun repeats. “… She really isn’t Ruri, is she.” It comes out as more of a statement than a question, so Yuto doesn’t bother to say anything in return.

They stand in silence for a while. Yuto turns over everything that’s happened in the last few days in his head, wondering if he’s really correct in saying that Yuzu isn’t Ruri. His conclusions are still the same. Despite what he and Shun hope, Yuzu is not Ruri. Ruri remains in the clutches of their enemy. Shun and Yuto are back at square one.

“Their resemblance isn’t a coincidence,” Shun says suddenly. When Yuto continues to stand around, lost in thought, Shun grabs him by the shoulder to force Yuto to meet his gaze. “It’s like you and Yuri, isn’t it?”

Yuto nods uncertainly. “I think it is.” They have a silent conversation with their eyes – these are signs of _something_ , and Yuto isn’t sure if they should get involved or not. More terrifyingly, he’s not sure if he’s already inextricably involved or not.

“I saw him,” Shun says suddenly.

“Saw who?”

“It was Yuri, or the other one,” Shun answers, seemingly uncaring of distinguishing between the two. “You’ve been in contact with Yuri?”

“Sparsely,” Yuto mutters. “He comes and goes and is only useful when he wants to be.” _Which is never_ , is the unspoken add-on.

“Has he taken to wearing more casual clothing? Is he clean, or—?” Shun grimaces then, unpleasantly reminded of their rather filthy states.

“He looks the same as the last we saw him,” Yuto replies, and his heart starts to beat a little faster with anticipation. Why hasn’t Shun mentioned this before, if he’s really seen—?

“Then it was the other one,” Shun says decisively. “Your copy from Standard.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I didn’t even look directly at him.” For some reason, Yuto is disappointed. “I was busy with LDS.” Of course. Shun would never let himself be distracted from a mission that he’s set his mind on. Shun interacting with Yuya would probably cause more problems than it could possibly solve.

Still, something in Yuto is infinitely curious about his counterparts. “His name is Yuya.”

Shun’s eyes narrow. “Don’t bother investigating,” he says shortly. “We’re not getting involved with him unless he can help us with our mission.”

The words are like a knife to Yuto’s stomach. “Yuri—”

“—is currently minding his own business,” Shun says pointedly.

“He won’t forever,” Yuto snaps. Surely Shun must understand; Yuri is _Academia_ , and he has found out the existence of his counterparts _somehow_ through Academia’s resources, and if he starts carrying information back to Academia—

“We’ll deal with him then,” Shun snaps back at him. “Remember yourself, Yuto. Remember why we came here. Our priority is rescuing Ruri. Don’t forget that.”

“How could I _forget!?_ You know how important she is to m—”

“If you care for the welfare of your counterpart, then you won’t get involved with him,” Shun says sharply. “I won’t hesitate to take you out if you’re becoming a liability. I told you that earlier. I know you’d do the same for me.”

Yuto swallows down his bitterness and sullenly nods. Shun is right, even if Yuto doesn’t want him to be.

That still doesn’t excuse his earlier behaviour. “I just did, earlier.”

Shun gives him a look that is both incredulous and outraged. “I was not—”

“You were being completely irrational,” Yuto cuts him off. “You were scaring her, and you failed to notice the other girl you were going to attack calling for backup. If we’d stayed any longer so that you could frighten Yuzu any more than you already had, we would’ve been swarmed by LDS in less than five minutes.”

“Say I was distracted,” Shun bites out. “LDS is no match for us, even one of us could take them all out. You know that. We _want_ to draw out LDS.”

“They also have access to a lot of resources like vehicles and restraints capable of holding elephants,” Yuto points out. “We’re two people, Shun. Would you even theoretically take on an army like that by yourself?”

“I thought you said this isn’t a battlefield.”

“Strategic thinking is always valuable.”

Shun harrumphs at him and leans against the wall. “Speaking of strategic thinking, they’re going to send that girl back out as bait for me.”

Yuto blinks. “Why?”

“She’s the only one on their team that knows what I look like. Even if she could describe me perfectly to them, they’ll still want to send someone who knows exactly who to look for. They’ll monitor her heavily if they do. This could be our chance to get to the director’s son.”

“She’s not part of the Top Team,” Yuto says. “Just a student. They can’t possibly expect her to hold her own against you.”

“You really think they care?”

*

The next day, Yuto stands around in that very same alleyway and wonders how long it’ll take for Shun to be done. He’d prefer not to check. Watching people turned into cards has always made his stomach turn. The less he has to watch what Shun is doing, the better.

He’s reluctantly conceded to let Shun go after Masumi, who has been wandering around this very area. It’s the most obvious trap Yuto has ever seen, but if anyone can avoid the steel of the mousetrap sitting around the offered honey, it’s Shun.

He admires Shun’s resilience in this. Sometimes Yuto forgets that Shun is barely a few years older than he is. Without him, Yuto certainly wouldn’t have thought of or implemented this plan, and he certainly would’ve gotten himself caught in the web that Yuri was trying to spin around him.

Yuto doesn’t know what he’d do without Shun.

There’s somebody coming down his alleyway. That cannot be allowed, even though Yuto recognises her pink pigtails. He steps out of the alcove he has hidden in and intercepts her with “I cannot let you go any further.”

Yuzu gasps and her eyes widen upon seeing Yuto.

“I don’t want my comrade to be interrupted,” he says to her.

“Your comrade… You mean the one from back then?” Yuzu asks. She suddenly looks horrified. “Wait, don’t tell me he’s fighting Masumi now!?”

Yuto nods. He doesn’t particularly like the idea, but Shun would not be deterred from a goal that he’s already set his sights on. A one track mind paired with unstoppable determination. Useful in combat, but disagreeable outside of it more often than not. Yuto has learnt over the years when to pick his battles with Shun.

“Stop him!” Yuzu cries. “Didn’t you stop him last time? Why this time…?”

 _Because we’re purposely taking the bait LDS has given to us. This is our best opportunity, even if neither you nor I will agree with the unfairness of it._ “You don’t need to know,” Yuto replies shortly. “I don’t want to involve you.”

Yuzu stiffens and glares at him. Something wavers in her expression for a moment, and then she darts forwards, intending to sprint around Yuto to intervene in the battle up ahead. When she gets close enough to him, Yuto grabs her by the wrist. “I don’t want you to get hurt!” he snaps when Yuzu turns around to look at him with wide, confused eyes.

“You don’t want me to get hurt?” she repeats. Angrily, she continues. “Why are you saying things like that to me and then turning around and hurting other people!?” Yuto blinks, and Yuzu wrenches her arm out of his grip. “Are you saying it’s fine if Masumi gets hurt!?”

Unable to face her accusing gaze, Yuto turns his eyes away.

“Just who are you!? No, all of you!”

Yuto remains silent. It only serves to make Yuzu more desperate. “Answer me! Who are you? What are you after?”

“… We’re after our comrades,” Yuto answers quietly. He might as well explain a little further. “Saving our dear comrades who have been captured by our enemy!”

Yuzu blinks, obviously taken aback. “Captured comrades…?” She gasps in realisation. “Is that… Ruri?”

Yuto had hardly expected her to remember the name, but he shouldn’t have expected anything less of a Ruri lookalike. Regardless, the simple mention of Ruri’s name is enough to make him inhale sharply.

“That person… he looked at me and called me Ruri,” Yuzu says. “Is Ruri your captured comrade? Do I look like her?”

Yuto removes his mask. There’s really no point in keeping it on; Yuzu has already seen his face before. “That’s what I thought at first. I wondered why Ruri was here. But you are not Ruri. Ruri would never learn the enemy’s summoning method!”

“Enemy?” This really is all new to her, isn’t it? Standard has seen nothing of the horrors of invasion and destruction at Fusion’s hands. Ruri, who had lived through it all and suffered so much for it, could never bring herself to use Fusion summoning even under torture. It represented everything they have lost, and it is the weapon of the _enemy_.

“Fusion summoning is used by your enemy?” Yuzu asks, wanting to confirm that she’s interpreting Yuto correctly. “The reason I learnt Fusion summoning was to protect the school, because I wanted to protect my friends!”

She is so much like Ruri that it hurts to look at her. Of course Yuzu would have pure, altruistic motives for learning how to use Fusion summoning. She is Ruri’s mind and face placed in a different world, and nothing had motivated Ruri to live on and continue fighting Academia like protecting her friends.

“We too are fighting to protect our comrades,” Yuto tells her. He can empathise with Yuzu’s motivation to learn Fusion summoning, even if he doesn’t like the results. “In order to end this conflict, and to create a world where nobody has to be hurt. I don’t want to involve you in that conflict.” He stares into her eyes intently, searching, although Yuto himself isn’t quite sure what for. “But if you have no choice but to fight, I want you to survive.” The next part is harder to spit out. “Even if it means using Fusion summoning!”

Yuzu stares at him. It’s no surprise, considering that in their last meeting, Yuto had condemned Fusion summoning and her use of it.

“The you who is trying to become stronger to protect your friends… The you who is trying to change yourself isn’t wrong.” Yuto finds himself smiling a little. He likes Yuzu, he really does, as her own separate person from Ruri. Maybe, in another life, where Yuto and Shun weren’t constantly fighting an uphill battle to save Ruri, he and Yuzu could have been good friends. “I’ll continue to fight. With Ruri and our comrades, in order to save our future!”

It’s like waking up from a thousand year sleep, or breaching the surface of the ocean after being sunken to the pitch-black ocean floor. For the first time in what feels like centuries, Yuto feels truly and honestly optimistic. It must be something about Yuzu; she seems to bring out the best in people. Her determination is infectious. Ruri had done the same for him, before Academia’s invasion, and in the wreckage of Heartland, her will and courage had been what carried most of them on.

“You are a lot like Ruri…” Yuto says gently. With one last smile at Yuzu, he goes to leave.

Yuto only makes it a few steps before Yuzu calls “Wait!” to him. “Tell me! Who is Ruri!?”

A heavy wind picks up around them, blowing leaves through the alleyway, and tossing Yuto’s cape around as if it’s as fragile as Yuzu’s hair.

“Ruri is one of our comrades, and Shun’s younger sister.” There is no risk of her passing the information to unsavoury sources. Yuzu understands Yuto now, and in a world like this, it’s immensely reassuring.

“What about you? What’s your name?”

“I’m Yuto.”

“Yuto…” Yuzu repeats.

It’s the last thing Yuto hears before he takes off. For once, he is able to end his meeting with Yuzu of his own volition, and there is something ridiculously satisfying about being able to control this tiny part of his fate.

*

Shun has succeeded in getting Akaba Reiji’s direct attention. In the meantime, Yuto explores Miami, and he pretends that the sight of the busy city and the tall towers and brilliant lights can satisfy his longing for his home.

He knows that Shun and Reiji have retreated to the LDS tower for negotiations, and that the initial meeting had gone unexpectedly, but supposedly well. Shun had failed to capture Reiji, but from what Yuto understands, Reiji is as opposed to his father as they are. They haven’t had allies in a long time, only other fighters in the same position. Never anyone who has the power to change anything.

Things may finally be going in a positive direction. The Standard dimension has been an experience, Yuto supposes. None of their questions have been answered, and only more arise as each day passes. 

It has been a while since Yuto has seen Shun. Nearing a week, he thinks, but there’s not much to track it by, and Yuto doesn’t care enough about the passage of time to mark it mentally.

He’s spent a lot of time in this alleyway; enough to remember the quickest route there, enough to memorise every dark spot of grime on the walls. It’s happened naturally; Yuto wouldn’t waste his time purposely trying to memorise the shape of what looks like a stain from soft drink spilled years ago but could easily be something else.

Standard is so _ordinary_ , he thinks, watching as hundreds of people walk by without noticing him at all. Maybe that’s why this dimension is called Standard. Home of all summoning methods, master of none. Perhaps that is why Academia does not consider it enough of a threat to merit any attention.

“Yuto.”

And today had been going so nicely, too.

“Yuri.”

Yuri inclines his head a little in acknowledgement. “A little birdie told me that your big birdie’s ditched you,” he drawls.

First of all, the only way Yuri could know that is if he’s been following them. Yuto _was_ surprised that Yuri had decided to confront him so soon after his humiliation at their last meeting, but it only makes sense that Yuri would swoop in for revenge at the first opportunity. “How much do you know?”

“More than you’d like me to, I imagine.”

Yuto would like it if Yuri knew nothing and went off and did harmless irrelevant things for the rest of forever, but alas, he will not. “Does the name Ruri mean anything to you?” It’s a gamble, an extremely risky one, but if it pays off, it’ll be more than worth it.

Yuri blinks at him for a second. “Ruri?”

In that second, Yuto’s extremely glad that they’re in a secluded back street where nobody will hear them, because Yuri starts _laughing_. Loud, nearly hysterical cackles, like Yuto’s just said the funniest thing in the world, and the sound causes scalding humiliation to clot in Yuto’s chest.

Yuri laughs for too long, making it almost unnatural, and he wipes at his eyes like he’s actually started crying from the force of his mirth. “Oh, _Yuto_.” His eyes have never been that bright before, and he’s never grinned that widely, and it makes Yuto very, very uncomfortable. “Yuto, Yuto, _Yuto—_ ” Yuri is cut off by the return of his laughter. He hunches over, clutching helplessly at his stomach.

“What!?” Yuto demands of him. “You know something, don’t you!? Answer me, Yuri!”

Yuri shakes his head a little. “I— gah, aha _haha_ , I—” he leans against the wall, actually pained from laughing too much. Eventually, he finally seems to be over it. “I know a lot of things, Yuto. Destiny is in motion, and it’s even more amusing than I’d predicted.”

Yuto is tired of Yuri’s games, and he is tired of beating around the bush. “Tell me what you know about Ruri!”

“I don’t want to,” Yuri says petulantly.

“ _Tell me_ ,” Yuto snarls.

Yuri has the audacity to lazily wave a hand at him. “I don’t see why I should tell you. You’ve been awfully rude.”

“I—” Yuto closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Yuri seems to find it funny. Yuto does it again to resist the increasingly strong urge to clock Yuri with his Duel Disk. “I’ll trade information with you.”

Yuri’s childish facade is incredibly annoying, which of course is why he’s using it. The angrier Yuto is, the worse the decisions he makes will be. “You don’t have much to offer me anymore. Why should I bother with you?”

“Name your price,” Yuto says. “Nothing I can offer will satisfy you. Tell me what you want.”

“That’s clever,” Yuri murmurs, “But it only works if there’s something specific I want. There’s nothing I want in particular from you at the moment.” Yuto bites back an insult. “I’ll tell you something later if I feel like it, but in the meantime, come stay with me.”

That catches Yuto off guard. “Stay with you? Where?”

“I can afford a nice hotel,” Yuri says amicably. Yuto doesn’t bother questioning where the funds come from. He’ll only upset himself. “There’s only one bed, so you’ll have to sleep on the couch, but it’s a sight better than filthy park benches.”

Yuto flushes a little. “Fine,” he decides. It’s better if he doesn’t think about it. At least this way, he can keep an eye on what Yuri’s doing.

He follows Yuri through back alley after back alley, wondering if he is stupid to place even this tiny measure of trust in his Fusion counterpart after everything that’s happened. Their route takes them into the high-end part of the city, the part with the classy restaurants and the tall, towering hotel buildings. Yuto feels even more out of place than usual. Even though Yuri is just as peculiarly dressed as he is, the way he walks with his head held high makes him fit right in. _Strutting_ , Yuto thinks, and is suddenly grateful that Yuri is in front of him and cannot see his momentary grin.

It turns out that the nice hotel is not a lie. Yuto and Shun have been waking up with dew on their faces and insect bites on their arms, and Yuri has been getting room service twice a day.

“Do you like it?” Yuri asks rhetorically, giving Yuto that infernal smirk.

Yuto thinks several rude words and does not reply aloud.

“We’re going to have to set some ground rules,” Yuri announces. One of those rules should be that Yuri has to shut the fuck up when they are indoors, but that would be too good to be true.

The rules are simple, boring household things. Yuto’s not sure what he was expecting; perhaps something a little more sinister than _‘don’t go through my things and I won’t go through yours.’_

Yuri doesn’t bother him; he goes about his own business, and in return, Yuto leaves him alone. Yuto now has time to think on what he’d garnered from their conversation. He wishes he had Shun to voice his thoughts to.

 _Yuri knows something about Ruri._ In a way, Yuto’s gamble has paid off. He has also achieved absolutely nothing.

What Yuri knows about Ruri is a mystery, and if Yuto wants to solve it, it will probably be over Yuri’s dead body. But Yuto doesn’t think that Yuri will withhold the information from him forever – after all, Ruri is most definitely a sore spot for Yuto, and Yuto knows just how much Yuri likes pushing his buttons.

If Yuri reveals to Yuto what he knows about Ruri, it will be at the time when the information will cause the most emotional agony.  
 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as an apology for spending all my time playing pokemoon and forgetting to update im just gonna upload both the last chapters now

Yuto wakes when he hears footsteps. A second later, something nudges his side, and his eyes flutter open fully. He rolls from his side to his back to glare balefully at the source.

It’s Yuri, of course. Yuto’s glare intensifies to a scowl that may or may not be a bit of a pout. “What do you want?”

“It’s ten in the morning,” Yuri says, and his lip curls slightly. “Do you plan to just laze about all day?”

With a groan, Yuto forces himself to sit up and squint at the clock on the far side of the room. It is indeed 10:04 AM. If he’d conked out at 8 PM, then he’s been asleep for fourteen hours. Yuto has become accustomed to sleeping for a meagre three hours a night, but having a comfortable place to rest for the first time in three years must have gotten to him. He doesn’t remember what a bed feels like, but he thinks if he lays in one, he’ll become Sleeping Beauty and never wake, not even under true love’s kiss.

Yuri nudges him again. To Yuto’s disgust, Yuri hasn’t even given him the dignity of using his hands, opting to dig the rounded toe of his boot into Yuto’s ribs. “Really, I expected better out of someone who shares my face. Get up.” There are most definitely multiple unspoken insults hanging on the end of that, and Yuto could get offended and spit something back if he so chooses. But Yuto doesn’t feel like fighting. He has only been awake for five minutes and his entire body is very helpfully hinting to him that he should change that by forcing him to yawn every few seconds.

Yuri’s heel digs painfully into the soft flesh just under Yuto’s ribcage. “I have an errand for you.”

There are at least three places that Yuto thinks Yuri can shove his errand, but he stands and stretches his arms anyway with a noncommittal noise.

As it turns out, Yuri has something in both hands, which is why he has been jabbing Yuto with his foot. Considering that one of those things is a wad of thousand yen bills, Yuto doesn’t see a reason that Yuri couldn’t hold the money and the other slip of paper in one hand, other than to be a jerk. 

Yuri gives both to Yuto. It could seem innocent enough that their skin doesn’t touch at all, but Yuto has come to understand Yuri well enough that the avoidance is deliberate.

“Where did you get this?” Yuto asks, turning over the bill in his hand. He hasn’t seen money in a very long time.

Yuri scoffs at him quietly under his breath before answering. “Not all of us are content to remain as destitute martyrs like you.”

A completely useless reply with only barbs and no information. Of course. The money must have either come from Academia or the pockets of some poor stranger in Standard. Both options are mildly repulsive, but Yuto is hardly going to pass up free money in this situation.

The other thing Yuri has given him is a bit of notebook paper. Yuto reads it over, and then gives Yuri an incredulous stare. “This is a shopping list.”

“Oh, good, you can read.”

“Why have you given me a _shopping list?_ ”

Yuri offers him a nasty smile. “You won’t trust me not to poison your food while you’re here, even though I’ve told you I don’t mean you any harm.” _Liar_. “So I’ll let you get your own things, under my limited budget. Everything on that list is perfectly healthy, and since I’m so generous, you can keep the change.”

There is a catch somewhere, there must be, but at the moment, Yuto can’t find it. “I’m not a charity case.”

“I never believed _that_ for a second.”

Yuto narrows his eyes. “This isn’t a favour,” he warns. “I don’t owe you anything.”

Yuri only continues to smile, and then he spins on his heel and wanders into the kitchen. Feeling an uncomfortable urge to get away, Yuto nearly sprints out the front door and into the street.

*

A few days pass. Yuto and Yuri’s… whatever they are to each other, is spectacularly dysfunctional, but it works, somehow. They teeter on a precarious balance, ready to crumble at any second. Yuto spends most of his time as he did before; as far away from Yuri as he can get. He forces himself to come back and go to sleep late and rise early so he can avoid seeing Yuri as much as possible.

He’s out once more, wandering the streets around the LDS tower. The tower’s guardedness has returned to what it was before Shun began his attacks. There’s no need for such high security anymore; Shun is allied to Reiji Akaba now, and LDS does not need to know of Yuto’s existence yet.

Especially not if Yuya is so high-profile right now. He’s in the tournament, Yuri said. Already won a match, and he gave a speech at the opening of the tournament. Something in Yuri’s tone had suggested that LDS has a reason to keep an eye on Yuya, and if so, then it’s for the best if Yuto stays in the shadows.

His mask has gone conveniently missing. Yuto is inclined to blame Yuri. However, just because he can’t hide his face doesn’t meant that he’ll content himself to stay hidden indoors all day where Yuri can question and torment him, which is probably Yuri’s goal in stealing the mask.

A very, very familiar voice reaches Yuto’s ears, sounding slightly grainy because it’s coming through speakers. He looks up – there is a large flat-screen television on the side of the building he’s passing, and others have stopped to watch.

Shun is on TV.

(The first and last time Shun was on TV, he was eight years old and sniffling when the reporter asked him about the recent flood in downtown Heartland. The water had washed away some of his cards and tiny eight-year-old Shun was distraught. His parents had immediately replaced them the next day, and also recorded that section of the news to keep forever. The Kurosaki parents thought it was adorable; Yuto and Ruri used it to tease Shun for years.)

“But even if they may be taken away… We will never abandon them! We will always take back our comrades!”

It cuts to Shun’s opponent’s face – Sora, the Academia soldier that Yuto has repeatedly encountered. If they’re on television, then they’re in the tournament. What an unfortunate match.

“Quick-Play Magic: Rank Up Magic – Revolution Force! I can take control of a Xyz monster on my opponent’s Field, and make it Rank Up to a ‘Raid Raptors’ monster that is one Rank higher!”

“ _What!?_ ” Sora cries.

“Prideful falcon, spread your wings dyed in the blood of heroes! Advance through the path of revolution! Rank Up! Xyz Change! Come forth, Rank 6, Raid Raptors – Revolution Falcon!”

“W-What is this!?” The commentator exclaims excitedly. “Kurosaki’s Xyz monster has Ranked Up even further!”

Rank Up. Yuto’s seen Shun use that before, hardly very often, only when he was going all out against his enemy. It’s fitting that he uses it now, even when he hasn’t bothered against his previous opponents in Standard. Sora is from Academia, and that is what Shun truly wants to fight.

Sora laughs. “What’s this? You start taking about revolutions and nonsense like that, but it’s only got 2000 ATK? You can’t defeat my 2800 ATK Des-Toy Mad Chimera with that!”

He’s an idiot if he really believes that. Yuto suspects that Sora is just grasping at straws, trying to convince himself that he isn’t vastly outmatched by someone he considers to be worth less than the dirt under his shoes.

“Oh, is that so?”

Sora’s grin abruptly vanishes, but he replaces it with a slightly shakier one. His eyes are mad; he looks just like his Academia comrades, playing their hunting games with glee. “That’s just a bluff, isn’t it? Because you don’t have any Set cards on your Field at all!”

He’s forgotten something very, very important.

“Revolution Falcon’s effect activates!”

That.

“When this card is Xyz summoned by Ranking Up a ‘Raid Raptors’ monster, I can destroy one Special Summoned monster my opponent controls, and deal damage equivalent to half its ATK to my opponent!”

“What!?”

“Go! Revolution Falcon! Burn and scatter in the flames of revolution!” Revolution Falcon attacking is both an awesome and gruesome sight. It drops bombs on the Action Field around it—upon seeing the landscape, Yuto frowns. _Heartland?_ It’s most definitely Heartland. How does an Action Field replica of Heartland exist in Standard?

The field is already in a poor state, but Shun only makes it worse. It’s like seeing the beginning of the invasion all over again. Colours and life fall and die, caught in the crossfire between fighters of two opposing worlds. Sora runs, looking around wildly, before diving for a card on the ground. He’s about to slap it onto his Duel Disk, but pauses when a shadow looms over him. There is no time for him to move or run for his life, and the falling building crashes right on top of him.

His Life Points hit zero, and the Action Field dissolves away, leaving Sora lying face down on the floor of the stadium. “T-The winner is Kurosaki!” the commentator announces.

There is no cheering. There is only discontented murmuring amongst the audience, disturbed by the horrific exhibition of the war between worlds. Yuto does not blame them; he is glad that Shun won, but destruction and despair is nothing to celebrate.

This was not a Duel for fun or entertainment. It did not belong in a tournament. This was a slice of the battlefield.

Shun approaches Sora, his hand moving to his Duel Disk. Yuto tenses – is it really wise to turn Sora into a card in front of all these people? It will ruin whatever little reputation Shun has, and more importantly, it will send the audience into a panic. LDS had not disclosed the nature of the disappearances for a reason.

The cameras and microphones in the stadium do not pick up whatever audio plays through Shun’s Duel Disk, but whatever it is, it makes him stop. Yuto breathes a sigh of relief.

Shun offers Sora one last disdainful glare before turning his back. When he goes to leave, Sora stirs. “Wait… This match isn’t over!”

It is, though. Yuto’s not sure why they’re still showing this on public television. All that’s going to happen is a nasty verbal conflict, and Yuto has no expectation that Shun will show any kind of empathy for an Academia soldier that he’s more than soundly thrashed.

Sora tries to force himself to rise, breathing heavily from his pain. Shun looks at him over his shoulder with distaste. “There’s no way I could lose!” Sora snaps. “To you Xyz scum, I could never…!”

Shun doesn’t say anything, but Yuto can read the disgust in his face before he continues to walk away.

“Wait! Don’t you dare run away! Again… Duel me again!” As soon as he spits out the last word, Sora collapses in a heap. What appears to be a medical team comes in and loads his unconscious body onto a stretcher. Yuto can see the mark of LDS on their uniforms.

That means that Sora will be in LDS’ care, most likely in the tower. If Yuto wants to interrogate him for information on Academia, nightfall will be the best chance.

It’s not like he hasn’t considered breaking into the LDS tower before, anyway.

*

Breaking into the LDS tower is so ridiculously easy that Yuto wonders why he hasn’t done it before.

He wanders down the halls in the dark, searching for the hospital room that Sora Shiunin has been placed in. He checks each one individually, but most rooms are either empty or have occupants that aren’t whom Yuto is looking for. Finally, when he slides the door to a room open as quietly as possible, Yuto spots a familiar mop of bright cyan hair.

Yuto walks to Sora’s bedside as quietly as possible. He doesn’t want to alert security in any way, which is what will inevitably happen if Sora throws a loud enough fit. Yuto is the one at the disadvantage here, but he will act the opposite.

Sora has a few visible bandages, some on his face, and other peeking from underneath the sheets. Shun really has not a drop of mercy in his blood, but he wouldn’t have survived any other way.

Sora must be able to sense Yuto’s presence beside him, because his eyes flutter open after only a few seconds. He utters a drowsy “Yu… ya…?” before his eyes can come into focus.

 _Yuya?_ Does Sora know Yuto’s Standard counterpart? Wouldn’t he, as someone from Academia, recognise Yuri in Yuto’s face first? Why does Sora know Yuya, but not Yuri?

There’s no time for that. Maybe later, once Yuto has the more important answers. “I have some questions for you,” he says.

The sound of his voice is enough to startle Sora into full alertness. “You’re…!”

“I want to know where Ruri is,” Yuto tells him flatly.

“Ruri?” Sora asks. He sits up properly and his expression turns to anger. “I don’t know any Ruri. There’s no way I would, anyway!”

“Then do you at least know where the hostages are?”

“I don’t! All I know is that your so-called prisoners of war don’t exist,” Sora shrugs leisurely.

“Don’t exist?” Yuto asks. But that’s impossible; they’d all been taken back to Academia once they’d been turned into cards—

Sora looks entirely too gleeful as he delivers his reply. “Because people who are hunted get put into cards! So I’m sure she is, too…”

Ruri cannot be a card. People can’t be turned back from cards; they might as well be dead. Ruri can’t be—

“More importantly, where is he?”

“He?”

“Shun Kurosaki! I have to settle the score with him!” Sora stands and grabs his Duel Disk from the bedside.

“That’s already been settled,” Yuto says coolly. Well, it has. Sora had lost, rather spectacularly. There isn’t a person in any dimension – except Sora himself – who could watch that match and say otherwise. “You lost.”

“I didn’t lose!” Sora snaps at him. “There’s no way I would lose to Xyz scum! Take me to him right now! I’ll beat him to a pulp this time! If I go all out, someone like him would easily be…”

 _You’re delusional_ , Yuto wants to tell him. Evidently, Sora has never lost a real battle before, or else he wouldn’t be standing here yelling at Yuto now. He’s come to believe himself invincible, and that all Xyz users are inherently weak, and having this bubble that he’s lived in for three years shattered must be a shock to his system. Sora is most definitely not coping well.

“Where is that shouting coming from?”

“This way!”

Two men in dark uniforms run in and stop in the doorway. Security. This is exactly what Yuto wanted to avoid. He sprints forwards and darts between them before they even have a chance to register that he’s moved at all.

He hears Sora yell out to him, but pays no mind. Yuto isn’t going to get any useful answers out of Sora. He runs and runs, right out into a nearby park, and hops up onto the stage for a better view.

Footsteps follow. Sora stops, panting heavily from exertion and from aggravating his injuries with too much movement. “Hurry up and get him! Shun Kurosaki! Hurry up and get Kurosaki!”

“You want to fight Shun again with those injuries?” Yuto asks.

“Yes! This time I definitely won’t lose! To someone like him… Xyz scum are all destined to be hunted by me! You, Kurosaki, and even that Ruri girl you talked about!”

Yuto tenses, more than he already has. Sora has no _right_ to talk about Ruri like that.

“There’s no way I would lose to Xyz users! I’ll prove to you that if I fight seriously, I’m the stronger one! I won’t show you any mercy if you’re going to hide him from me!” Sora announces angrily. “I don’t know where that girl is, but I bet she was turned into a card.” He grins maliciously. “Or maybe there might actually be a way to save her…”

“What?” This is news. This is _important_. If Sora, in all his blind hatred for Shun, will tell Yuto the way that Ruri can be saved, then—

“By destroying all of us! But that’s impossible for the likes of you, though.”

Fine. Sora’s obviously spoiling for a fight, and Yuto is just agitated enough to give in to him. He activates his Duel Disk and holds his arm steady, ready to begin.

“Oh? Finally feeling up to it? That’s more like it!” Sora is surprised, but more than eager. “I’ll take you out first before I finish off Kurosaki! I’ll prove that I can deal with every Xyz user in this world by myself!”

“I won’t let that happen,” Yuto snaps. “Defeating you will be the first step towards saving Ruri!”

“DUEL!”

Sora deals damage on the first turn, and Yuto winces in pain when he’s smashed against the wall behind him. At least he didn’t go flying.

Sora taunts him relentlessly, trying to push Yuto into retreating and calling on Shun. He’s a nasty little bastard, and he plays like one too, trying to turn it into a hunting game like the ones that Academia plays in Heartland. Yuto will not give in to him, and he will not fall. Sora thoroughly enjoys the second he activates Polymerization, because the sight of that card or the sound of its name will never cease to make Yuto tense.

Just like how he’d underestimated Revolution Falcon due to its ATK, Sora underestimates Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon. After three years of taking down ‘Xyz scum’, he should have learnt that Xyz monsters always have a trick up their sleeves.

Yuto could choose to detach both Overlay Units and end the Duel this turn, but he can’t stop thinking about Sora’s injuries. He doesn’t want to hurt _anyone_ anymore, and anyone includes Sora. If Yuto can spare him further pain and choose to end this peacefully, then _good_.

The blast still sends Sora flying backwards. While he lies on the ground trying to reassert himself, someone else runs over. Yuto starts a little. How long has this person been here?

“Are you okay, Sora?” That voice…

“Go away! This isn’t any of your business!”

“What are you talking about!? Why did you sneak out here to Duel when you should be getting rest in the hospital!?”

Sora sits up, smacking away the other’s hands when he tries to assist. “He’s… Damn it! He’s making fun of me!”

Of course he would interpret it that way. Fusion users know nothing of mercy. Sora forces himself to stand with a grunt of pain. “I’ll never forgive you!” he shrieks at Yuto.

“That’s enough! If you keep this up, your body will….”

“Shut up! I’m still not going all out yet! I’ll prove to you that if I get serious, I’m the stronger one!”

“You can do that anytime! Like in the next tournament!”

“There isn’t a next time! In a real battle, there is no next time!”

“That’s right,” Yuto interrupts, finally. He hasn’t been sure of when to involve himself, but evidently, the answer is now. “But even if you are my enemy, I can’t bring myself to hurt you anymore. If you surrender now, I’ll end this so that you won’t suffer.”

The other boy next to Sora turns to look up at Yuto angrily. “What are you planning? What are you gonna do to Sora!?”

As soon as their eyes meet, it is a struggle not to outwardly react. _Yuya_. Yuto’s Standard counterpart. He’s wearing the jacket of the Miami middle school over his shoulders, and he even has goggles sitting on top of his head. Yuto feels the resemblance here is even stronger than that with Yuri – Yuri would never look at anyone like that, his cheeks flushed with righteous anger.

“Answer me! That Kurosaki guy tried to do something to Sora too!”

Yuto chooses not to answer right now. He’s busy with Sora, Yuya can wait. He breaks the staredown that Yuya’s crimson eyes have initiated, and fixes his gaze on Sora. “You said I have to destroy Fusion if I want to save Ruri, right?”

“Ruri?” Yuya asks. He seems to recognise the name; where he’s heard it, Yuto doesn’t know.

“A large building can be brought down by a single anthill. I’ll have you become the first crack that we drill into the wall of Fusion!”

Sora makes a disgusted “ _tch_ ” sound under his breath. Yuya suddenly steps forwards and in front of Sora, shielding him from Yuto’s view. “Stop it! I won’t let you harm my friends anymore!”

As far as Yuto knows, he’s had nothing to do with Yuya or his friends. Unless he means Yuzu, confused and hurt by the constant revelations and questions piled onto her that she has nothing to do with. Or perhaps Yuya isn’t referring to Yuto as an individual, but rather as a group – a group that includes Shun Kurosaki.

Yuya attaches his Duel Disk to his arm, glaring viciously at Yuto the whole while. “If you want to do this, then I’ll take you on!”

Before Yuto or Sora can do anything, the Duel has already registered as a Battle Royal.

“Using the Scale 1 Stargazer Magician and the Scale 8 Timegazer Magician, set the Pendulum scales! With this, I’m able to summon multiple Level 2 to 7 monsters simultaneously!”

That’s… new. Yuto’s never seen anything like this before in his life. Logically, he should probably be a bit frightened or something, since Yuya is using the bizarre new mechanic against him, but all he feels is intrigued. _Standard really is full of surprises, isn’t it?_

“Sway, Pendulum of the soul! Draw an arc of light across the ether! Pendulum summon! Come forth with your wondrous and beautiful dichromatic eyes, Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon!”

The second that the red dragon materialises, something is _wrong_. Everything is suddenly hot, and Yuto brings a hand up to his chest where it feels like his heart is being constricted. It’s a struggle not to pant or breathe too heavily, especially because it feels like his lungs just can’t expand far enough, or like they’re so high up in the atmosphere that the air is thin and oxygen is scarce.

Something is very, very wrong. Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon makes an odd growling noise that Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon returns, and then they _scream_ at each other before emitting light. Dark Rebellion pulses luminescent blue, and Odd-Eyes glows vivid red. The dragons continue to call out to each other.

Yuto isn’t sure what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling. He doesn’t have time to think on it any longer, because Yuya declares Battle Phase. “I attack Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon with Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon!”

The dragons have the same ATK of 2500. Whatever Yuya is doing here isn’t reckless; he must have a plan for this. The dragons don’t react like they normally should in battle – they fight and chase each other around, viciously tearing into each other even when they’re equally matched.

Yuto cannot afford to have Dark Rebellion taken out just yet. “I activate a Continuous Trap! Phantom Fog Blade! This card negates your attack, and as long as I control this card, Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon cannot attack!”

The dragons settle back beside their masters. Dark Rebellion hovers behind Yuto as an imposing shadow, his wings spread out and crackling with light, as if trying to scare off enemies. But Dark Rebellion isn’t sentient. He is a Duel Monster, behaving within his coding, and he’s simply being flashy because that’s what the whole point of holographic monsters is.

“A Trap that negates attacks…? If he had that card set, he could’ve stopped my Bear’s attack….” Sora runs forward, his face twisted with rage and hatred. “You baited out my attack just so you could Xyz summon again!”

Well, yes. Dark Rebellion is a stronger monster than Break Sword, and Yuto didn’t have the usual materials on hand to summon it. It’s simple strategy.

“And in your attack earlier, you didn’t use one of your Overlay Units! How… How much more are you going to make a fool of me!? I’ll never forgive you! _Never!_ ”

Yuto glances over at Yuya, who is currently the more interesting one of his opponents in this Battle Royal. It’s Yuya’s turn, and after the bizarre display with the dragons, Yuto wonders what he will do next.

“I activate Timegazer Magician’s Pendulum effect! Once per turn, it can negate the activation of a Magic or Trap card that targets a Pendulum monster! _Inverse Gears!_ ” Phantom Fog Blade is face-down once more. Yuya grins. “Alright!”

“Trap activate,” Yuto says, and watches Yuya’s grin abruptly fall. “Booby Trap: E! This card copies the effect of a Set Trap I control.”

“That means that the Trap that Timegazer negated…” Yuya murmurs, more to himself than anything, but Yuto finishes his sentence for him anyways.

“That’s right, since it has the same effect as Phantom Fog Blade, your attack is negated, and as long as I control this card, your dragon still cannot attack.”

Yuya makes a frustrated sound and ends his turn, since there’s nothing else he can do. Sora runs over to Yuya and roughly shoves him to the side. “If you can’t do anything, then get lost!”

“Sora!” Yuya seems genuinely surprised and confused by the action.

“He’s my prey! Don’t interfere, Yuya!”

“Your prey!? What does that even _mean!?_ Answer me, Sora!” Sora doesn’t answer. “You said the same thing during your Duel with Kurosaki! You said they were just prey for your hunting games!”

The hunting games. Yuto will never forget the hunting games. Academia had turned the slaughter of the innocent people of the Xyz dimension into a _game_. They’d even compete with each other, gambling on whom could get the most in one outing.

“Yuzu told me that your friends took Kurosaki’s little sister! They’re the ones that kidnapped Ruri, aren’t they!?”

Yuzu had told Yuya about that? Yuto is mostly sure that Yuya is trustworthy with the information; he’s definitely sure that Yuya would never willingly pass it on to Academia that Shun and Yuto are looking to rescue one of their hostages if he knew the extent of what the Fusion dimension has done to the Xyz dimension.

“Yuzu told you that…!?”

“She said she heard that from Yuto…” Yuya looks up at Yuto expectantly. “Is that really true!? Answer me! You’re Yuto, aren’t you!?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me, then! What happened!? Why do you guys hate each other so much!?”

It is too long of a story to tell. There is no way to condense it that will do justice to its horrors. Hate – that does not describe what Yuto feels for the Fusion dimension. There isn’t a word strong enough for it.

There are no words to describe the suffering, the misery that the Xyz dimension had – still has – suffered at the hands of the Fusion dimension. Fusion had torn the world apart, and they made their conquering into something for _fun_.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Come on, answer me!”

Sora snickers and pulls a pink lollipop from his pocket. “There’s no way he could. If he did, he’d have to show their weak side.” He bites into the lollipop viciously, crunching the hard candy loudly.

“What?”

“He’s just a remnant of those losers. They’re just runaways from the Xyz dimension that my allies took over!”

“Xyz dimension!?” Standard really knows nothing of the other worlds. They are untouched, and this is the first that Yuya is ever hearing of the Fusion dimension’s invasion and destruction of the Xyz dimension.

Despite all that they have suffered, they are not _taken over_. The Resistance still carries on, and as long as there is even one survivor, there is hope.

“Shut up!” Yuto snaps at Sora. “We have not been taken over! And Shun and I didn’t run away! We came to this world to oppose the Fusion dimension!”

“Fusion dimension!?” Maybe Yuya kind of needs to shut up for a minute. “Xyz dimension, Fusion dimension… What are you guys on about!?”

Sora jabs a finger in Yuto’s direction. “It means that he and Kurosaki aren’t from this world! They came from another world – the Xyz dimension!”

_Nice job excluding yourself from the classification of ‘other’, it really does make it seem like you’re the good guy here._

“Another world!?”

“My allies fought gallantly and won against the Xyz dimension! If I lost, I’d be smearing mud on your honour! And more importantly, I can’t forgive myself! I was top of the elite class in Academia and given this special mission…”

 _By your own logic, you already have_ , Yuto thinks. _If the Fusion dimension had any honour to have mud smeared on in the first place, anyway._

“There’s no way that I could _ever_ lose to Xyz scum! My turn!”

“Stop it!” Yuya cries. “If you keep this up–”

Sora ignores him. “I activate my Set card on the Field, Des-Toy Custom! With this card’s effect, I can Special Summon Edge Imp Tomahawk from my Graveyard and have it treated as a Des-Toy monster! Then, I activate the effect of the Edge Imp Fakefur in my Graveyard and have it treated as a Des-Toy monster! Then I activate Des-Toy Fusion from my hand! Using Edge Imp Tomahawk on my Field with Fakefur and Des-Toy Scissor Bear in my Graveyard, I perform a Fusion summon!”

His Duel Disk begins to emit bright light, but Sora doesn’t notice it at all, too swept up in his rage. “I’ll make you realise how powerful I am! The real power I developed at Academia! I’ll bring out the strongest monster with _real_ Fusion Summoning!”

Before that can happen, his Duel Disk beeps in a matter that merits some concern, and suddenly closes out of the Duel. The screen shines with brilliant red light. “Stop! I don’t want to go yet!”

Judging from the light and Sora’s reaction, he’s exceeded some sort of limit placed on him by the Duel Disk, most likely a limit to help avoid detection by way of limiting the strength of his summons. In the case that the limit is broken, his cover must be assumed blown, and it will take him right back to Academia.

Therefore, if Yuto can get his hands on a Duel Disk like that, he has a perfect ticket to the Fusion dimension to rescue Ruri.

“Sora!”

“Wait, please! Until I defeat him! Until I finish off that Xyz user! _I can’t go back to Academia!_ ”

Sora shrieks the last part as he dissolves in blue light. Yuto’s seen similar before, when Fusion users had gotten bored or tired or some combination of the two and gone back to Academia.

“Sora… Sora! Hey, what’s going on!? What just happened!?”

Yuto watches Yuya impassively. There’s no real reason for them to continue fighting. With Sora gone, Yuto can freely divulge information that he would prefer not to get into Academia’s hands. “He went back to the Fusion dimension.”

“Went back!?” Yuya still believes Sora to be from his world, then. Not something other, not someone from a world that has made its purpose nothing but destruction.

“Yes. He was originally from that world.”

“That world…? What’s this nonsense you’ve constantly been spewing!? Sora is from the Fusion dimension, you and Kurosaki are from the Xyz dimension; are you saying there are other worlds than this one!?”

If they’re going to have a proper conversation and actually work out their issues, then Yuto will quickly have to shatter Yuya’s disbelief. “That’s correct.”

“Stop screwing around! There’s no way I can believe that! Hurry up and give Sora back, he was injured in his Duel with Kurosaki!”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” Yuto tells him firmly. “Academia should have their own doctors.” He’s never seen Academia, but from the pristine states of its warriors on arrival, it has a plentiful budget to look after their soldiers.

“Academia? What _is_ Academia?”

Yuto’s hands are clenched into tight fists at his sides. “Academia is a training school for Duel soldiers in the Fusion dimension!” That is the briefest description that he can give, and it leaves out what they _do_ entirely.

“Duel soldiers!?”

“Yes. Now that Sora Shiunin has left, it would be my turn, but this Duel no longer has any reason to continue. I activate the Quick-Play Magic: Emergency Provisions! I can send any number of Magic or Trap cards from my Field to my Graveyard and gain a thousand Life Points for each.” With his Life Points now at 5000, Yuto ends his turn.

Yuya looks surprised. “Are you sure!? With your Trap gone, I can attack you with Odd-Eyes!”

“If you want to, then do it.” This is a test. If Yuya attacks, then he is cemented as an enemy. Yuto wants to give him a chance, this by with his face, even when he’s so sympathetic to an Academia soldier. If Yuto could give a chance to _Yuri_ , then he can do the same for Yuya.

Yuto stares resolutely into Yuya’s eyes. Even in such a short time of knowing him, Yuto can tell that Yuya is a good person. He’s endlessly loyal to his friends and will do anything to defend them. If he really was a lost cause, then he wouldn’t have warned Yuto about the vulnerability he’s just exposed.

Yuya’s eyes widen, and he looks almost insulted. “There’s no way I could!” He pulls his deck out of his Duel Disk, making his holograms dissolve and his Duel Disk automatically shut itself off. Yuto tries not to smile as he does the same.

He likes it when his judgements of character are right.

“You said that Sora would be the first step in destroying the Fusion dimension,” Yuya starts hesitantly. “But because he’s disappeared, aren’t you relieved, somewhere deep down? Even in your Duel with him, you would have won if you’d used both Overlay Units, but you tried to end it by only using one to destroy Sora’s monster. You don’t really want to fight, do you!?”

Surprisingly perceptive. Yuya has cut right to the heart of it, and with such little time to put together his evidence and draw that perfectly accurate conclusion. Yuto doesn’t like hurting people, and he never will.

“Those people… Those people at Academia are _invaders_ ,” Yuto tells him. “They invaded the Xyz dimension and kidnapped my comrade, my best friend’s little sister. They attacked our homeland!”

“Your homeland…?” Realisation crosses Yuya’s face. “The Xyz dimension?”

“Academia calls it that; just as they use Fusion summoning, Duellists of our world all use Xyz summoning. But it was never a tool for fighting!” This he must impress upon Yuya with the utmost importance. It is the reason that the Fusion dimension’s invasion is so horribly unjust. “Our Duels were there to make everyone have fun and smile! Until that day… until Academia attacked us.”

He would never forget the first day of the invasion. It had been perfectly sunny, and the most ordinary day in the world. There was no warning, nobody suspected their fate until lightning crashed down from the sky and unnatural dark clouds spread to signify Academia’s arrival.

“Heartland was overflowing with people’s smiles…”

Infrastructure came crashing down and the whole world caught fire. Non-Duellists were turned into cards in an instant, no chance of fighting back. Parents tried to protect their children, and everyone that didn’t run fast enough fell to the beams emanating from Academia’s Duel Disks.

“They turned one person after another into cards.”

“Something like that… I can’t believe that!” But Yuya is obviously shaken by Yuto’s grief. He’s just in denial now, not wanting to believe that such an abhorrent tragedy could occur in any world. “Using Duelling to take over worlds?”

“Do you think it doesn’t concern you since you’re from such a faraway world? The world is bigger than you perceive it to be. There are so many things happening in places unseen. In this reality, I saw countless people get turned into cards before my very eyes!”

“A world we don’t know of…” Yuya murmurs. “Do the Xyz dimension and Fusion dimension really exist?” His eyes suddenly widen, and his gaze flies back up to Yuto’s face from where it had sullenly fallen to his feet. “Then does that mean…?”

Yuto already knows what Yuya’s going to ask, and so he nods. “Yes. It certainly exists; the Synchro dimension. It’s still a mystery as to why the worlds are divided by summoning methods, but it’s an undeniable truth.”

“Then what about here!? What’s our dimension called!?”

“Standard,” Yuto answers. “Academia calls this world by that name.”

“Standard,” Yuya echoes.

“The foundation of all that exists, the centre world.” A world with all summoning methods in it. A jack of all trades, master of none.

“Xyz, Fusion, Synchro, Standard. The world is divided into four dimensions, and the Fusion dimension is invading the Xyz dimension… Why did something like that happen!?” Yuya looks at Yuto, imploring him for answers that Yuto doesn’t have.

Even after three years, he still doesn’t know _why_ the invasion occurred in the first place.

“I don’t get anything about this dimension nonsense! But I know this! Duelling is not a tool for conflicts! And even less for invading. The Duelling that I believe in is entertainment to make people happy and put smiles on their faces!”

He is… Yuya Sakaki really is something, isn’t he? Yuto wonders how Yuri, with his cold eyes and empty heart, could stand to stalk someone as bright and pure as Yuya for as long as he had without going mad. For someone like Yuri, it would be like staring into the sun, and even Yuto feels a little blinded.

“Even now, I remember it clearly.” Yuya encloses the small pendulum hanging around his neck in his fist. “My father united everyone with Duelling! That power was in the Action Duelling that my dad created and polished – the power to grab people’s attention and bring smiles to their faces! I even felt like I was getting a bit closer to that…” For a moment, he’s silent, lost in a memory, but returns to his speech with full force. “That was Duelling… the Entertainment Duelling that I believe in! To think that Duelling is being used to hurt people… I can’t forgive it!”

“You…” Yuya is _beautiful_. He believes in hope, in better futures, and he will take the world by storm. He’s a kindred spirit; he shares Yuto’s face and his dreams.

Green lightning crashes down onto the earth, mere metres from Yuto and Yuya. 

It pulses outwards into a sphere, crackling menacingly, and something crashes loudly. When the light clears, a very familiar white motorcycle stands in its place. The crashing noise was a lamp post falling when the motorcycle landed on top of it.

“Oww… Dammit, what’s this thing doing here?” The rider removes his helmet as he continues to complain. “Jeez…”

Yuto’s face stares back at him. His dark blue brows are furrowed, the corners of his mouth turned down in an irritated scowl, and his spikes of blue and yellow hair are slightly mussed from being crammed under his helmet. 

Of course.

 _It’s been a while, Yugo._  
 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> well lads here we are hope yall enjoyed the ride

“You’re….” He _knew_ it. Yugo is Yuto’s Synchro counterpart; he only needed the sight of his face to confirm it. As nice as it is for some things to make sense, this is also incredibly inconvenient. After all, the last time Yuto and Yugo met, they fought rather violently, and inconclusively.

Yugo blinks, torn from his internal reverie on lamp posts by the sound of Yuto’s voice. “Huh? You! I’ve been looking for you! It’s finally time for me to finish you!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuto can see the confusion and worry on Yuya’s face. 

Dammit. Dammit, this just has to happen now. Yuto’s barely even convinced Yuya that he’s not hostile, the last thing he needs is to fight with Yugo, who obviously isn’t interested in a reasonable conversation after their last meeting.

Yugo cracks his knuckles. “We might’ve been interrupted in our match last time, but I’ll never lose to you one-on-one! Come on, Duel me! I’ll definitely wipe the floor with you this time!”

Just the reminder of their unfinished Duel never fails to make Yuto agitated. He knows that Yugo must know something about Ruri, and if Yuto can beat him, he can force information out of him. Yugo seems to hop dimensions at will, and Yuto intends to beat his sorry face in and then take his method to go save Ruri. “Fine then, I’ll take you on, Pawn of Fusion!”

“Pawn of Fusion?” he hears Yuya repeat.

A look of utter indignation crosses Yugo’s face. “What do you mean Fusion? My name is Yugo! Stop getting it wrong!”

“Really, Yuto?” a fourth voice chimes in. “Mistaking someone else for me?” Yuri wanders out of the shadows, his magenta eyes gleaming with predatory amusement. “I thought I made a stronger impression than that.”

“Go _away_ , Yuri,” Yuto snarls. The only way this situation could possibly have gotten worse was if Yuri decided to show his nasty face, so of course he has. This is just Yuto’s luck.

With Yuri’s appearance, the air suddenly seems a lot thicker, like thunder is crackling overhead, and the world is so, so cold, but Yuto’s skin is so, so hot. He has the bizarre instinctive knowledge that the four of them should not be here. They never should have met.

Yuri places a hand on his chest, tightly gripping the fabric of his cloak, his eyes wide with exhilaration. He appears to be pondering over what to say, but words fail to describe what he’s feeling. Yuto can read it in the others’ faces, anyway. Yuya looks confused and afraid, his eyes darting from one counterpart to another, and Yugo does the same with a touch more anger.

“I can’t believe you were having a party here and didn’t invite me,” Yuri says loftily, but his gleeful expression doesn’t match his petulant tone. “I’m hurt.”

They are not doing this. Yuto is not going to put up with this. “You weren’t wanted.”

“You wound me, Yuto, you really do.” Yuri’s gaze flickers over to Yuya. “Yuya, you get on with Yuto, don’t you? Tell him to stop being rude.”

“I–” Startled by Yuri’s sudden attention, Yuya fumbles a little, and then narrows his eyes. “Hey, how do you know my name!? I’ve never seen you before–”

“Oh, I’ve been following you around for about a month, I know you quite well.”

Yuya gasps and involuntarily takes a step back, his eyes wide. Yuto grinds his teeth. “Leave him alone, Yuri.”

“Oi, what the hell is going on here!?” Yugo demands. Considering that he didn’t seem to have a problem trying to run Yuto over in the past, Yuto should keep as much of an eye on his volatile Synchro counterpart as his devious Fusion counterpart, and he needs to watch out for Yuya as well, to protect him rather that to protect others from him.

“I was going to go find you next, but you’ve decided to be convenient and come find me instead,” Yuri says to Yugo. “That’s nice, the others weren’t nearly so cooperative.”

Yugo bares his teeth in a nasty scowl. “I’m not cooperating with any of you bastards! I’ll beat your face in once I’m done with _him!_ ” The last word is punctuated with an angry jab in Yuto’s direction.

Oh, good, he’s still an unreasonable ball of rage on a bike. But something is odd – if Yugo is allied with Fusion, shouldn’t he recognise Yuri? Yuto has been operating on the assumption that Yuri knew about his counterparts because he’d encountered Yugo, but from what Yuri has just said, this is their first time meeting. Yuto points at Yugo too, just because he can and being pointed at is kind of irritating. “Yuri, do you know him?”

Yuri makes a noncommittal noise. “Considering that we all have the same face, I’d know him quite well.”

He’s dodging the question. Yuto’s eyes narrow. He wasn’t mistaken, then. “So you do know him.”

“I don’t.” It’s the worst lie that Yuto has ever heard; Yuri isn’t even trying. He _wants_ Yuto to find out. 

“Liar,” Yuto snaps.

Yuri blinks innocently. “I would never lie to you.”

Yuto deadpans.

“Oh, Yuto,” Yuri sighs, and then grins. “You’re far too clever. I wouldn’t say that I know him, we only saw each other for a few seconds.”

Yugo’s eyes suddenly go wide. “ _You._ ”

“Me.”

“But…” Yugo looks back and forward between Yuto and Yuri, searching for _something_ , although Yuto doesn’t know what. He’s evidently confused, putting together pieces of a puzzle that only he sees. “… Two? But then…”

“We didn’t part on particularly good terms,” Yuri stage-whispers to Yuto. He has that awful look on his face again; the one that he wore after Yuto asked about Ruri.

Yuto doesn’t like the direction this is taking. “What happened?”

“I’m bored of being singled out for interrogation, ask him.”

Wonderful. Whichever account Yuto receives is going to be horribly biased and give a wildly inaccurate impression of whatever disaster Yuri has managed to cause. It’s Yuri’s fault, Yuto doesn’t even need to guess at _that_ for a second. “Yugo, what happened with Yuri?”

“You…” Yugo momentarily screws his eyes shut as his mind races, and then he opens them to throw dagger-like death glares between Yuto and Yuri. “Which one of you was it!? I won’t answer your questions until you answer mine!”

It feels a bit like the world has turned on its head. Yugo is not the Pawn of Fusion that Yuto has always believed him to be, and this carries a heavier implication – Synchro is not their enemy. They could be something else entirely, or they could be as neutral as Standard, and Yugo is operating on his own. That seems to be the case now. But _what_ Yugo is after, Yuto doesn’t know.

Every time Yuto has seen Yugo, he’s spitting with anger and insistent on fighting Yuto. Fighting Yuto, not anyone else. Why? What has Yuto done without knowing that would make Yugo so intent to revenge himself upon him—?

“He’s unusually spiteful towards you, Yuto,” Yuri murmurs. He’s clearly been enjoying watching Yugo and Yuto have a go at each other. “What did you do to make him hate you so much, kidnap his girlfriend?”

Yugo lets out a wordless shriek of rage. How has Yuri hit the nail on the head in one guess? He’s a master button-pusher, Yuto knows that from experience, but if he’s only met Yugo once before for a short moment, then how had he gained the perfect ammunition out of seemingly nowhere?

A terrible realisation begins to tickle at the back of Yuto’s mind.

Yuri covers his mouth with a faked gasp. “Oh, did I hit a nerve?”

“You _bastards!_ ” Yugo shrieks, his face flushed with fury. His hands are balled into tight fists at his sides, and if it wasn’t for his gloves, they’d be visible as white. “You took her, I know you did, and I’ll _make_ you give her back—!”

With a short, malicious chuckle, Yuri tilts his head to the side to stare at Yuto through half-lidded glittering eyes. “Well, I think I’d best be leaving,” he drawls. “I don’t feel like getting caught in the middle of your brawl.” He slams his hand down on his Duel Disk, which lights up in the same way that Sora’s had. “It was violent last time, wasn’t it? That much I saw, even though I couldn’t get particularly close. So much destruction…”

_He was there?_

“That was how you found me, wasn’t it?” Yuto breathes. It’s all beginning to slide into place – he hadn’t even questioned the perfection of Yuri’s timing, assuming that it was calculated to get Yuto at his most vulnerable, when he was hurting and enraged from his Duel with Yugo. It was simply Yuri taking the chance he’d gotten. He’d admitted, although not explicitly, that he couldn’t track Yuto. If Yuri didn’t go after Yuto at that moment, he would have lost his chance.

Yuri gives him a nod that’s a bit like a bounce and then continues speaking in a disgustingly chipper tone. “Besides, it’ll make me look good in the Professor’s eyes if I come back from my holiday early.”

Yuto has always found it odd that Yuri has been so absolutely sure that he won’t be sought out by Academia after going rogue. He knows why, now. This will be the last time he sees Yuri on their loosely peaceful terms. The next time they meet will be on the battlefield.

Yuri gives Yuto one last horrible smile. There is fever in his eyes, and he fires his last sentence like the killing arrow. “I wouldn’t want to get caught in the crossfire of your hate for each other. After all, it’s not like _I’d_ know anything about what happened to Ruri and Rin.”

Everything comes together. Yuto sprints forward and lunges at Yuri, trying to grab on or catch him before he disappears, but he is too late. He passes right through the fading lights where Yuri was only a few seconds ago, Yuri’s parting laughter echoing in his ears.

He’s gone.

Yuto stands in place, feeling his shoulders tremble with the force of his rage.

Betrayal stings sour in his gut. He’s not sure why – he should have expected this. Yuri is a liar, and he likes to play games. Yuto is madder at himself more than anything else. The knowledge that Ruri’s kidnapper has been right under his nose this whole time makes bile climb the back of his throat.

After Yuri’s laughter when Yuto had asked him about Ruri, he should have known. It was there the whole time. How Yuri must have cackled to himself, realising that Yuto is looking for Ruri, and knowing exactly where she is and what had happened to her.

Ruri wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. Yuto doesn’t know if she’s been turned into a card or not, but that’s not even the important part. She would have Duelled Yuri, Yuri and his monstrous dragon, _Yuri_ , who must Duel like he thinks and acts.

He would have torn her apart.

A sudden revving noise grows louder and louder, and it is Yuto’s only warning to jump out of the way before Yugo nearly runs him down. The motorcycle skids to a halt as Yugo slams on the brakes to remove his helmet and glare at Yuto balefully.

“ _You,_ ” Yugo snarls, his features – Yuto’s features, Yuya’s features, Yuri’s features – twisted with absolute loathing. 

“I don’t—” Yuto tries desperately to intervene, to make Yugo realise that his rage is directed at the wrong person, but Yugo cuts him off.

“Tell me what you did to Rin!”

Yuto doesn’t know who Rin is, but he’ll bet anything that she is Synchro’s Ruri as Yuzu is Standard’s Ruri. It seems to be a universal constant. He shudders to think of what Fusion’s Ruri must be like if Fusion’s Yuto is such a monster.

Yugo seems to take Yuto’s lack of answers as deliberate defiance and taunting rather than the actual proof of innocence it is. “I’m gonna beat you into the ground and make you answer me, and then you’re gonna take me to that other bastard, and I’m gonna kick his face in too!”

“I don’t know where he is,” Yuto grinds out. “I’m not with him, I don’t–”

“Shut it!” Yugo shouts at him, and then points at Yuto accusingly again. “He’s dressed just like you, and you sure acted buddy-buddy enough before! Don’t think I’m gonna let you off lightly if you can pin all the blame on that other jerk! I’ll destroy both of you!”

Oh, Yuri, you clever, clever bastard.

Yuri is a quick thinker and an even better manipulator, Yuto will give him that. Not even an hour of knowing Yugo, and Yuri has influenced him so easily even with his limited amount of information. He’s shot an arrow blindfolded and deafened and struck perfect bullseye anyway.

It didn’t matter to Yuri that he couldn’t manipulate Yuto. He’d just spun a web around him instead, luring his new player closer, carefully setting his traps with every word he spoke. Perhaps even Yuya wouldn’t realise the extent to which Yuri had just expertly manipulated Yugo. His appearance, playing on their previous amiability, utilising Yugo’s cemented hatred of Yuto, deliberately provoking Yugo to a certain level. And then Yuri disappeared, leaving Yugo’s wrathful eye to fall on his perceived companion.

Yugo will not be deterred by reason at this point. Yuto can argue all he likes, be as reasonable as possible, and it will all bounce right off. He is too firmly painted as an enemy, and Yugo will accept nothing from Yuto but the answers he seeks. He would not take a surrender even if Yuto was willing to give it.

If Yuto wishes to get through to Yugo, he’ll have to smash reason right through his thick skull. 

He activates his Duel Disk and Yugo activates his own in return. The D-Wheel is still absurd, but it’s also a dangerous vehicle – Yugo has tried to run Yuto over with it every time they’ve met.

“Duel!”

Yugo drives right at Yuto, vaulting his motorcycle into the air by way of using a bench as a ramp. “First to strike wins! My turn!”

There’s barely a second for Yuto to dodge, and Yugo’s motorcycle lands heavily where he was. Yuto winces internally at the loud _thunk_ , and wonders what kind of noise would have sounded if the stage floor was his body.

“When I control no monsters, I can Special Summon Speed Roid Beigomax! Then, I Special Summon the Level 3 Tuner Monster, Speed Roid Three-Eyed Dice!”

Yuya obviously hasn’t seen much of Synchro Summoning before, living in Standard. He watches Yugo with wide, curious eyes. Yuto knows what to expect. He’s seen this before.

“I Tune my Level 3 Beigomax with my Level 3 Three-Eyed Dice!” Three and three is six; Clear Wing Synchro Dragon won’t make its appearance just yet. “Cursed blade in the form of a cross… Use your power to rend all of our enemies! Synchro Summon! Come forth, Level 6, High Speed Roid Cursed Blade Dharma!”

Yuya is mumbling to himself off to the side. Yuto can only hope that he at least tries to stay out of the way. He also hopes that Yugo has enough of a one-track mind to leave Yuya out of this.

Actually, he’s not really sure if Yugo has even noticed that Yuya is there. He must have, but perhaps it hasn’t really registered, as Yuya is the only real neutral party there. Yuya hasn’t gone out of his way to deliberately antagonise Yugo like Yuri had, and Yuto hopes that Yuya won’t try to jump into the fight to protect Yuto like he had with Sora.

Yuto imagines Yugo turning his rage on Yuya, who would try to reason with him, and Yugo would run him down before Yuya could get the first word protesting Yuto’s innocence out of his mouth. With that thought, Yuto’s focus on tracking Yugo’s driving patterns sharpens.

“I activate Cursed Blade Dharma’s effect! Once per turn, I can banish one ‘Speed Roid’ monster from my Graveyard to deal 500 damage to my opponent!”

It forms as a comet of blue light, hurtling straight at Yuto, who narrowly avoids being scalded by the blast when it crashes not a metre from him.

“I Set one card and end my turn.”

Yuto’s going to have a lot of bruises by the end of this. “My turn! I Summon Phantom Knights – Ragged Glove from my hand! When I control a Level 3 ‘Phantom Knights’ monster, I can Special Summon Phantom Knights – Silent Boots! I Overlay my Level 3 Phantom Knights – Ragged Glove and Silent Boots!” They’ll get right into this, then. Yugo may not be associated with Academia, but he fights as ruthlessly as any of their hunters. “Souls of warriors fallen on the battlefield, revive now and become light to rend the darkness! Xyz Summon! Come forth, Rank 3, Phantom Knights – Break Sword!”

The same strategy he used against Sora Shiunin; it’s proven to be reliable over and over again. The clash of the dragons is inevitable, and the second that Yugo brings out Clear Wing, Yuto needs to be able to match him. “An Xyz monster that is summoned with Ragged Glove as an Xyz Material gains 1000 ATK until the end of the turn! Battle! Go, Break Sword! Attack Cursed Blade Dharma!”

He feels kind of like an idiot running around like this, but that’s hardly important. The further Yuto can get Yugo away from Yuya, the better. Break Sword destroys Cursed Blade Dharma, and Yugo’s Life Points go down from 4000 to 3200. “Whoa, that was a close one!” Yugo says to himself.

“I Set one card and end my turn. At this moment, Break Sword’s ATK returns to normal.”

Yugo’s motorcycle skids to a halt with a nasty screech. “Damn, now you’ve done it! I’m going to pay you back double… no, a million times! My turn!” Yugo misses running Yuto over by a hair’s breadth, but he doesn’t seem to be actively trying to hit him, which may be an improvement. “I activate the Magic Card: Speed Reverse! I can Special Summon one Speed Roid from my Graveyard! Be reborn, Cursed Blade Dharma! I can’t Normal Summon on the turn I use Speed Reverse, but this is more than enough to destroy your monster! Battle! I attack Break Sword with Cursed Blade Dharma!”

He comes flying at Yuto quite literally, but Yuto doesn’t want to be backed into summoning Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon yet. “Reverse Card, open! Continuous Trap: Phantom Sword! It increases Break Sword’s ATK by 800!”

Yuya seems pleased with the current turn of events, but Yugo is not. “Look at you underestimating me! I’ll activate my Trap Card as well! Speed Turn! It puts Break Sword into Defence Position and lowers its DEF by 500! Now your monster is finished!”

Not just yet. “I won’t let that happen! When Break Sword would be destroyed by battle, I can destroy Phantom Sword instead!”

“But Cursed Blade Dharma inflicts piercing damage! You’ll take the difference between its 2200 ATK and Break Sword’s DEF! Take 1700 points of piercing damage!”

The damage comes flying as cyan light again, and Yuto can’t run fast enough to avoid the blast. He’s thrown forwards by it, and hits the ground painfully. Nothing is broken, that he can tell, but another blast like that and Yuto won’t be able to say the same.

“I Set one card and end my turn.”

“Yuto!” Yuya cries, and runs towards him to help. Yuto raises a hand, which trembles a little with the pain that the motion brings, and shakes his head.

He forces himself to stand. “My turn! I change my Defence Position Break Sword back to Attack Position! And I summon Phantom Knights – Dusty Robe from my hand! I activate Dusty Robe’s effect! By turning it to Defence Position, I can increase Break Sword’s ATK by 800 until the end of the turn! Battle! I attack Cursed Blade Dharma with Break Sword!”

Yugo’s hand hovers near his Duel Disk. He’s contemplating doing something or other, but he ends up taking the attack. His Life Points sink to 2600, and Cursed Blade Dharma is gone.

“I Set one card and end my turn. At this moment, Break Sword’s ATK returns to normal.”

Yugo barks out a short peal of laughter. “You’re pretty good!”

Hopefully good enough to take Yugo down, by whatever margin, and maybe the final lot of damage that takes Yugo’s Life Points to zero will also bash some sense into him so that he will sit still and _listen_. “You really aren’t Fusion, are you?” It’s rhetoric; Yuto already knows the answer. His issues with Yugo are now of a more personal nature – their last fight, and the grudges that their dragons seem to carry with one another.

“ _No!_ ” Yugo hollers. “I’ve told you a billion times that I’ve got nothing to do with Fusion! My name’s Yugo, dammit! Now I’m pissed off! First you take away what I held precious, and then you keep getting my name wrong! I’ll save Rin from you bastards no matter the cost!”

“I’ve never even met a ‘Rin’ before in my life!” Yuto snaps.

Yugo gives him an incensed glare. “That other guy sure has, and you know _him!_ Stop trying to play stupid!”

_You’re an absolute moron if you really can’t tell that he was winding both of us_ , Yuto wants to snipe, but opts to argue “I’m not with him and he’s taken something precious from me too!” _Ruri_. Possibly even more of his comrades. Yuri would be one of _those_ who prided themselves on their card count. “If you’d just listen to me—!”

“Shut up! We can talk after I beat your face in! My turn!”

Yuri really has spectacularly muddled everything up for them. If Yugo realises how thoroughly he’s been played, his vengeance upon Yuri will be something to behold. But Yuri has pulled his strings tight, and there is nothing stronger than the righteous fury that drives Yugo forwards now.

“I Summon Speed Roid Double Yo-Yo from my hand! When this card is successfully Summoned, I can Special Summon a Speed Roid from my Graveyard! I Special Summon my Level 3 Tuner monster, Three-Eyed Dice!”

A low rumbling echoes in the back of Yuto’s head. This is it. Three and four is seven. Something seems to shift and curl in his chest.

“I know,” Yugo says, talking to a certain _something_ that nobody else can see. Just thinking the name makes Dark Rebellion’s vague presence sharpen and growl in Yuto’s mind. “I know you want to fight him, so I’ll call you out right now! Let’s go! I Tune my Level 4 Double Yo-Yo with my Level 3 Three-Eyed Dice!”

Heaviness begins to set in the air.

“Spread those wondrous and beautiful wings, and strike down our enemies at light speed! Synchro Summon! Come forth, Level 7, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon!”

“Yugo has a dragon too…?” Yuto wishes he could explain to Yuya, tell him everything he knows, adequately warn and prepare him for the horrors that lie ahead, but there is no time.

“Battle! Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, attack Break Sword! Hell Dive Whirlwind Slasher!”

Break Sword is destroyed, and Yuto is sent flying once more as his Life Points hit 1300. His ribs are going to crack soon. Yuya runs to him with a cry of his name, but Yuto snaps at him to stay back. Now that Yugo has brought Clear Wing out, this battle is far more dangerous than it had been before. Yuto has felt Clear Wing’s wrath before. He won’t let Yuya be unnecessarily harmed by the inevitable attacks to follow.

“I activate Break Sword’s effect! When this monster leaves the Field, I can Special Summon its Xyz Materials as Level 4 monsters!”

Yugo recognises what Yuto is doing instantly. How could he not? “Heh, now that those guys are back, I’ll be getting rid of the useless one! Magic Card: Hidden Shot! I banish Speed Roid Double Yo-Yo from my Graveyard and destroy Dusty Robe!”

He slams his brakes on once more. “With this, I end my turn. You know why I left those two, right?” Of course. Yuto has expected since the very start of the Duel that they’ll be pushed to this point eventually. “Go on, bring it out. My Clear Wing Synchro Dragon is waiting…”

It was only a matter of time before this battle escalated into a replica of the last. Yuto shouldn’t be surprised.

Yugo watches Yuto with serious blue eyes behind his visor as he speaks. “I’m certain that I was guided here by my dragon, just like when I was called to your world Heartland.” This information is new to Yuya, who has only learned of Heartland not even two hours before, but Yuto knows this story well. He and Yugo will loop over and over again until it has a conclusion. “This time we’ll settle the score! Now, call out your Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon!”

“Settle the score?” Dark Rebellion _likes_ the thought of that. There is nothing Yuto can do but follow Yugo’s command and Dark Rebellion’s will, even when dread churns his stomach. “My turn! I Overlay the Level 4 Ragged Glove and Silent Boots! Fangs of pitch black darkness, rise up against the foolish oppression! Xyz Summon! Descend now, Rank 4, Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon!”

It’s similar to what happened when Dark Rebellion collided with Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon. Out of the corner of his eye, Yuto can see Yuya hunch over, clutching at his chest, fighting to breathe as a cold sweat breaks out over his body.

He feels much the same.

Something is wrong.

Something is very, very wrong.

The last thing Yuto hears is Dark Rebellion and Clear Wing’s roars.

*

_Destroy…_

_You…_

_Everything._

The words come as whispers through his mind, using his body as a puppet. These words are absolute. He is but an instrument in bringing them to reality.

A second voice joins him, lost in identical madness.

_Destroy everything._

_Burn everything to ashes!_

_Eradicate everything!_ They chorus.

The world is a dark haze, and there is nothing in it but loathing. “Go! Battle! Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon, attack Clear Wing Synchro Dragon!”

Even the sight of Clear Wing, the looming dragon and its vessel, makes bile rise in Dark Rebellion’s throat. He _hates_. It swallows and drowns him in itself, and he would say that it is taking him over, but how could that be when it leaks from him? He is a progenitor of hate and destruction, and he will level the world.

“Stop it!”

The third voice sounds far away. Is it talking to him? For what purpose? The concept of stopping is alien; if he was to _stop_ , he would die. This is all that he is.

“This isn’t Duelling! I won’t accept this! Duels are there to make people smile! They’re there to make people happy! Duelling… Duelling isn’t for hurting people!”

How absurd. Dark Rebellion tries to quash the voice from his ears, but it is right in front of him. It’s hard to focus on his hatred without a target, and Clear Wing’s muttering has ceased.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you!? Duelling filled your homeland with smiles! In Heartland!”

Memories drift across his mind. People smiling and laughing because of Duels. Heartland, alive and beautiful with smiles.

Devastation counters it, horror and crying and misery as Heartland burns and falls apart under Academia’s hands. _Heartland…_

Smiles, laughter.

Destruction, misery. Make them pay for what they did.

No.

That is not all that he is.

He is more than his hatred.

“I…”

Dark Rebellion – no, _Yuto_ , opens his eyes. He blinks back the darkness as his vision comes back into focus. He feels a bit lightheaded, as if he’s been asleep for a very long time. Yuya is standing in front of him, his arms thrown out wide, and his eyes search Yuto’s desperately.

“… don’t want to hurt anyone.” 

Yuya lowers his arms, beaming with relief. “Yuto…” Yuto sinks to his knees, overwhelmed by the ache in his bones. How long had he been out of it this time? For how long had Dark Rebellion possessed his body? “Yuto!”

“I… end my turn.”

There’s genuine concern in Yuya’s face as he kneels in front of Yuto. 

“My turn!”

Clear Wing still clutches Yugo’s mind in its claws. His eyes are nothing but white, glowing with an unnatural blue light. “I Summon Speed Roid Shave Boomerang from my hand!”

“Stop it!” Yuya cries, turning to stand in front of Yuto protectively. “You need to stop this too!”

It is a lost cause, Yuto already knows this. Yugo is too vulnerable of a target; he doesn’t have the same motivation to break free of the dragon’s hold. He’s already filled with so much anger, and he follows Clear Wing’s will too easily. “ _I’m certain that I was guided here by my dragon…_ ” Yuya cannot save Yugo from Clear Wing. Not tonight.

“I activate Shave Boomerang’s effect! Once per turn, I can change this monster to Defence Position and lower one monster’s ATK by 300!”

“Right now, Dark Rebellion’s ATK is 3000… Even if he lowers it by 300…” Yuya doesn’t see what Yuto does. Yugo isn’t aiming to lower Dark Rebellion’s ATK.

“I will lower Clear Wing Synchro Dragon’s ATK!” Yes, there it is.

“What!?”

“At this moment, I activate Clear Wing Synchro Dragon’s effect! Since a Level 7 monster has been the target of an effect, I negate Shave Boomerang’s effect and destroy it! Dichroic Mirror!”

Yuya beams. He is too optimistic; he doesn’t know the second half of what Dichroic Mirror does. “I see! You’re also…!”

“And its ATK is increased by the destroyed monster’s ATK!”

Yuya’s smile abruptly vanishes. “What!?” 

“Battle! Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, attack Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon! Hell Dive Whirlwind Slasher!”

The dragons clash. Dark Rebellion seems to resist for a moment, but Clear Wing easily overpowers it. The battle is over; Yuto has lost. He has nothing else up his sleeve. Anything he tries, Yugo – Clear Wing – will easily toss aside.

But the blast – the blast is headed right for Yuto, right for Yuya. “Yuya!” Even with the agony coursing through his body, Yuto forces himself to stand and shove Yuya out of the way.

It hits him full force, and his Life Points hitting zero is only an absent note in Yuto’s mind compared to the pain that the actual defeat causes. His Duel Disk has fallen from his arm, and Dark Rebellion’s card is somehow in his hand. He’s not sure what bones are broken or fractured; it might be easiest to just say that everything _hurts_.

The sky is white. It’s far too early for sunrise, but sunrise is never this bright. The light envelops the whole world for miles and miles, and there is nothing but Yuto in the grass and Yuya kneeling at his side.

“Yuto!” Yuya puts an arm under Yuto’s shoulders to half-sit him up. Everything feels kind of distant, and everything that was pain has gone numb. It’s a nice feeling. “Stay with me! Are you okay!?”

Dark Rebellion is glowing. “Duels with smiles…” Yuto murmurs. He used to have flashy Duels with Shun and Ruri to entertain their classmates. Those times are long gone, but he misses them so. He misses Heartland, before the invasion. He misses his home.

Yuya is confused and worried. Yuto wants to reassure him, but his words would be empty. “With your power… give it to the world, and everyone’s futures… smiles…” Someone like Yuya, with his potential for greatness, his honest and unwavering belief in Duelling for fun and happiness, is the only one who would understand what Yuto wishes now.

He holds out Dark Rebellion to Yuya, and Yuya gingerly takes it. “With my power?”

Yuto nods at him. He’s smiling, he thinks. Yuya’s hand is warm, and the world is so bright. Yuto isn’t tired, but it’s the closest descriptor to what he’s feeling. 

Yuto hopes that Yuya will tell Shun what happened. Shun has already lost so many. Ruri’s loss had devastated him; the only person he has left is Yuto, and Yuto is sorry to be the cause of more suffering for Shun.

He has so many regrets. Ruri, Yugo, Yuri. Yuto’s made so many mistakes, but he doesn’t think that he could have done anything differently. He is too late, but Yuya isn’t. Yuya will carry on, and Yuto has done all he can. Entrusting Dark Rebellion to Yuya is the last he can do.

A world with smiles. Not like how it once was; they can never go back to how things were, but instead, a world better than before.

Yuto fades, and hope remains.


End file.
